Fire Drill
by oylizabeth
Summary: She wonders why none of this was ever mentioned in the Campus Tour…roommates that you don't see, communal bathrooms with no hot water and fire alarms that go off ALL THE TIME.
1. Chapter 1

I own nothing.

It starts Rachel's 3rd night of college. She wonders why none of this was ever mentioned in the campus tour….roommates that you don't see, communal bathrooms with no hot water and fire alarms that go off ALL THE TIME. Ohio State wasn't at the top of her list anyway and after her first week there she was less than impressed. So on her third night of college she finds herself startled awake by an ungodly loud fire alarm and dragging herself out of bed at 3am to evacuate the building. Outstanding.

The upshot of all of this is at least she wasn't in the shower or something. And it's warm out so she won't freeze to death in her tiny shorts and tank top. As Rachel stood across the street from her building watching the fire trucks come up to clear the building she noticed a familiar person….at about the exact same time the person noticed her. Damnit.

"Quinn," says Rachel

"Rachel, " says Quinn

The girls looked at each other. Then sighed and realized the universe was going to win. They made their way closer towards each other and sat on the curb of the street in silence. This only lasted 30 seconds since Rachel Berry was present.

"I didn't know you were going to Ohio State," she questioned Quinn.

Quinn went on to relay that while she had always planned on going out of state for college, after the whole baby thing her parents would only agree to instate tuition. And while Quinn had been living with the Hummels for the past two years and working with Ms. Pillsbury to get scholarships, she still needed her parents help. Therefore they agreed to pay for Ohio State as long as Quinn came to dinner once every three months. Quinn really didn't want to accept their help for college, but had come to realize that she didn't have any other choice.

Rachel's turn. She declared vehemently that she her being at Ohio State did NOT mean that she was giving up on Broadway. It's just that her and her dads have always had this deal that if she got a college degree than they would help her make her way in New York. And while she would have loved to go to NYU or Columbia, they just couldn't afford it in the current economic climate. So Rachel accepted a partial scholarship to Ohio State in the hopes that after putting in her four years and saving every penny she made then she would finally, FINALLY see her name in lights on Broadway.

Since the fire department seemed to be in no hurry to let all of the freshman girls back into their building, Quinn and Rachel sat on the curb for the next 45 minutes talking about their class schedule and their roommates. Quinn said that the fire alarm was the first time her roommate had left their dorm room since arriving. Apparently she was homesick. Rachel was suddenly thankful for a roommate who had a junior basketball player boyfriend and was rushing a sorority. The girl had yet to spend one night in the room.

Finally they got the all clear to go back into the building and as they made their way back into the building, they made plans to get lunch sometime later in the week. Rachel had declared that it would be stupid of them to try to ignore each other now because of past differences, especially since they were living in the same building. Quinn could only smile and nod while agreeing. She had a feeling she would be doing that a lot in the next year.

Quinn and Puck get together every time the birth parents of their beautiful baby girl send them pictures and updates. It's hard, but they've found its easier to go through it together. This was how their friendship was forged senior year. The adoptive parents send them pictures every few months with just a few notes on how Audrey is doing. Quinn always waits to open the letter until she's with Puck.

Quinn had given them her new address at college, and it was the second week of school when she got the letter. She had been expecting it, but that didn't make it any easier. She knows Puck was rooming with Artie in a dorm nearby so she gave him a call to come over and talk and look at the pictures. About twenty minutes later she heard a knock on her door.

"Hey Quinn…uh what's with your room?" asked Puck as he noticed some strange decorative screen things in the middle.

"My roommate refuses to leave the room and I needed some privacy so I went and bought these cute privacy screens from Pier 1 to divide the room in half. Come on it, the letter is over here," she explained.

While Puck and Quinn were looking over the latest photos of their daughter, the fire alarm in Quinn's building goes off. Again. It's gone off 4 times in the twoweeks that they've been at school. Puck and Artie are rooming in a different building and they haven't had these problems. It's 10 pm and Quinn knows that ever since the 2nd fire alarm, Rachel tries to fall asleep with her head phones on loud enough to drown it out. Quinn had to bang on her door FOREVER to get her to notice it during the last one. Rachel's roommate is a harcore party girl that has spent about 2 nights in their room. Either way, Quinn's hands still hurt from the last time she banged on the door trying to get Rachel to stop listening to show tunes and get out of the building so she makes Puck go down and tells him she'll meet him outside.

To be fair, Puck had no idea who's room he was banging on. Quinn just gave him a room number and said it was a hot friend and for him to MAKE SURE she opened the door. After about a minute and a half of solid pounding, he hears a voice on the other side start cussing and the door is flung open.

And it's Rachel fuckin Berry. Damnit Quinn.

"Noah? What are you doing here? Do you go to Ohio State? How did I not know you went here? What are you doing banging on my door?" she fired off in rapid succession.

Noah heard the questions but had a hard time concentrating on anything other than what Berry was wearing. Tiny shorts and a tank top covered in…reindeer? And snowflakes? And suddenly he can't stop laughing. He just grabbed her hand and yanked her towards the stairwell. She asked him questions the entire way down the stairs until they found Quinn outside.

"I hate you," Puck said to Quinn. Quinn just looked at him and rolled her eyes and turned her attention to Rachel.

"Do your laundry. You look like an idiot," She informed Rachel.

Rachel just huffed and said she had planned to do her laundry but every time she goes down there the machines are either full or out of order and these were the only pajamas she had left that were clean. Then she turned to Puck and demanded to know how he ended up here with them, because last she heard he was staying in Lima and taking classes at the community college nearby.

"I got waitlisted for here and didn't tell anybody and found out in July that they had a spot for me. I'm rooming with Artie which is pretty sweet since it's a handicapable room which means it has its own bathroom," he told her. He turned to Quinn and thanked her for showing him the letters and pictures and said he'd catch up with them later. He and Artie had plans for a guitar jam that night and he wasn't about to miss it. As he walked away, he couldn't help smiling at how funny Rachel looked standing there in the most ridiculous pair of pajamas ever made.

Quinn finds herself down at Rachel's room a lot over the next few weeks. Her roommate only leaves for classes and then comes back and cries and sits on her computer. Rachel's roommate only comes back to her room when her and her boyfriend have had a fight or if the girl needs more clothes. It's kind of a perfect situation since Rachel hates to be alone and Quinn figures that if she can't get any privacy, she may as well hang out with someone she knows and isn't crying.

They're in the middle of a Cougar Town marathon and debating which Courtney Cox character they like better….Cougar Town or Friends version. Also, the drinking game is epic since anytime someone on the show takes a drink, they have to drink. Rachel and Quinn are wasted after two episodes when the fire alarm goes off again. They stash the alcohol in Rachel's backpack and make a mad dash towards the stairs. They decide they don't want to wait outside and watch the hot firemen work (it was only fun the first two times when they had a rating system going. But the guys never take off their jackets and they aren't doing anything too heroic like pulling people from a burning building so much as they are going to see which floors microwave is smoking this time so it's not a huge turn on) so they stumble over to Puck and Artie's dorms.

Quinn is bouncing off the walls like they're rubber and Rachel begins yelling for her to "PULL IT TOGETHER!!" so they don't get found out for drinking in the dorms. Eventually they find themselves standing in front of the guys door.

As Rachel and Quinn are trying to knock out some sweet rhythms on the door, Artie flings it open. And finds two hot drunk girls starting to collapse in hysterical laughter at his door step. For the life of him, he can't figure out what they're laughing at. He's pretty sure they don't even know.

"I do believe they are intoxicated," He called out to Puck. Puck had been straight up dominating at Call of Duty when he heard Artie and the girls.

"That is one hot mess," said Puck after surveying the scene. So he helped them untangle themselves while trying to listen to how they realized they were tapping out the beat to "Express Yourself" and then they tried to do their old dance moves but ended up going the wrong way and fell.

"ARRRTTTIIIEEEEEE!!!!" Quinn yelled. Loudly. And right in his face. "I've missed you! We should all hang out together more!"

"We've only been at school a few weeks. And we're hanging out together now right?" he replied. "And what are you guys doing here?"

The girls tried to explain about the hot firemen and Cougar Town and the vodka they had stashed away. Puck just turned to Artie and explained that their fire alarm goes off like all the damn time and that if they're found in the building then it's a $200 fine and if they've been drinking they probably didn't want to call attention to themselves out on the street so they came here.

Rachel is nodding along to Pucks version of the story with her eyes wide like it's the most important story ever told. Quinn is a giggling mess barely able to stand. So Puck decides that they should all start drinking because, hey why should the girls have all the fun. They find some Fresh Prince reruns on and the girls settle on Artie's bed and Puck gets set on his and Artie hangs out in his chair in the middle. The girls refused to drink Puck's beer that he produced from under his bed so they are back on with the Vodka and some coke Artie had around. Artie said he would drink but not much because he didn't want to fall out of his chair or something.

It's only after Puck has done his entire rendition of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's theme song complete with dance moves and head swirls that he realizes Rachel has her phone out. And was videoing him. And she sent it to everyone from Glee Club. And had tagged it to Facebook. Bitch.

It's 3 a.m. and everyones tanked and the girls wouldn't have been able to sneak back into the dorms without calling major attention to themselves so it's decided they'll just stay there. And since Artie needs his bed to sleep on and neither one of the girls is awake enough to get up and move, Puck comes over and grabs the closest one and puts her on his bed. Which just happened to be Rachel. He just pushed her over to the side closest to the wall and got in next to her. They sleep next to each other without touching the entire night. It's somewhat impressive.

Rachel woke up the next morning with the biggest headache she's ever had. She rolled over and opened her eyes and came face to hot man chest with Noah. Dear God that boy was good looking. Rachel took her time to peruse his chest and his lovely arms and when her eyes made it up to her face she was met with a smirking Noah.

"I always knew you thought I was hot," he grinned at her. She just rolled her eyes and sat up. While she and Puck had managed to make it through the night without touching each other, apparently Quinn and Artie had not. She nudged Puck and he sat up to take a look at the other bed in the room. Quinn and Artie were turned towards each other in sleep with arms wrapped around each other and Quinn's legs thrown over Artie's. Rachel thinks its pretty much the most adorable thing in the world so of course she takes a picture to show Quinn later.

It's only after the girls leave that Artie starts giving Puck a hard time about his Fresh Prince Dance when Puck just smirks at him and tells him to look at his own Facebook page. Apparently two or three beers is all it takes for Artie to feel comfortable enough to do his impression of the Carlton Dance complete with him singing the song. Damnit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Still don't own anything just having some fun.**

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It's a couple weeks later and Quinn can no longer handle the sniffling coming from the hermit currently occupying half of her dorm room. Quinn had tried for the first few weeks to get her to go out and do stuff with them and try and get to know each other but the girl had just said no and turned back to her computer. Quinn had officially given up.

Since it's a Wednesday night, she knows Rachel will be in her dorm studying for her classes she has the next morning and practicing her singing. Quinn thinks she can handle Rachel's singing a lot better than her roommates sniffling so down to Rachel's room she goes.

Quinn was just getting settled on Jordan's bed when Rachel turned around and yells, "Don't sit there!"

"What? Why? I always sit here."

"I know…but Jordan figured out someone had been sleeping in her bed and she bitched at me for like an hour the other day. I don't know why she cares, she hardly ever uses it."

Quinn looked around the shoebox sized dorm room and got settled on Rachel's bed with some English 201 reading she had to get done. Rachel sat at the crappy little desk and finished up her Calculus. They finished up early enough that Quinn was still refusing to go back to her room so they popped in a movie and laid on Rachel's bed eating junk food.

Puck and Artie are in the middle of a kick ass Guitar Hero war when their fire alarm goes off. So they head out of the building and walk over to the girls dorms. Cuz no way is Puck hanging around outside for an hour with the weather starting to get colder when he could be bugging the girls and ogling the freshmen girls getting out of the showers at the bathrooms at the end of Rachel's hall.

Besides, Rachel always had food in her room. Like real food. All Puck and Artie had was beer and energy bars.

Puck had been over at Rachel's room once or twice before, mainly bugging the hell out of her and Quinn while they tried to get ready for football tailgates or dinners. He'd gotten into the habit of knocking once and then just flinging the door open. It always scared Rachel to death, especially when she's in "major study mode".

Puck just thinks she looks cute when she gets surprised and yells at him. Not that he would ever tell her that.

So Puck knocks once and flings the door open while Artie just stares at him and shakes his head.

"You're trying to catch her when she's changing aren't you?"

Puck doesn't even hear the question because he's too busy staring at the scene in front of him.

Rachel and Quinn. Sleeping. Together on the same bed. Talk about a dream come true…

"Holy hell… Artie…"

Puck scrambles to get out his phone to take a few pictures before the girls wake up. Artie had the good sense to at least feel a little conflicted before he pulled out his own phone and snapped a few pictures.

"Take one more picture and I will beat you with my English Literature book" Quinn blinked her eyes open as she threatened the boys.

They quickly hid their cell phones and explained about the fire alarm in the boys dorm and how they wanted food. Rachel realizes that she hasn't been to the store this week so she doesn't have anything to feed them.

"But I'm hungry. Feed me. You always feed me Rachel!" Puck has whining down to an art.

"You're just beyond useless. How in the world have you lived to be 18 if you can't even manage to feed yourself"

Artie and Quinn sense that this is about to become ugly and just as Puck opens him mouth to ask her how she managed to survive to 18 being as short as she is when Artie suggests they just go down to one of the bars still open and serving food just off campus.

Quinn convinces Rachel it's a good idea because it's only 10 pm and of course they will be back at a decent hour for her to wake up for her 9 am class.

They end up at a bar with $8 liquor pitchers and $1 hamburgers and the next morning is the first time Rachel Berry misses a class. She blames Noah.

The next Friday night there's a party that Quinn and Rachel are getting ready to go to when there's a quick knock and then Rachel's door is flung open.

Rachel just rolls her eyes and asks what Noah wants. He and Artie were going to see if the girls wanted to go hear some band sing across Campus but as he eyes the girls he gets the distinct feeling that they already have plans. Without them. And this is a feeling that does not sit well with him.

"And just where do you two think you're going dressed like that?"

"House party some guys invited us to…and dressed like what exactly?"

"Do you even know these guys? You're going to put on a jacket or a sweater right?"

"I know one of them from Calculus and he invited me and said I should bring a friend. No I'm not putting on a sweater over my pretty new halter top "

"What's his name? You need to put on more clothes."

"Michael. And no."

"What's his last name. And yes."

"I don't know! What's with the third degree?"

"Ok you are not going to a party dressed like that with guys you don't even know!"

"Dressed like WHAT exactly?"

Quinn and Artie know that this argument has taken a turn that cannot possibly end well for Puck. However, they aren't going to touch it with a ten foot pole. Instead, Artie looks at Quinn and tells her he thinks she looks beautiful and in no way does she look dressed like a whore (which is what Puck is currently trying to imply to Rachel in slightly more delicate terms. "I didn't say you look like a prostitute I just think you should be wearing more clothing when around guys you don't even know!" Rachel is now yelling back "For the love of God it's jeans and a halter top. What do you want me to put on?")

Quinn can't figure out why shes blushing at Artie's compliment so she tries to distract him from noticing her blush by telling him about the party and the guys and how she's just going to help out Rachel since Rachel has had a crush on the guy who asked her for a few weeks now. And then the words are out of her mouth before she can stop them "You should come too".

Before Artie can answer Puck swoops in and says that they'd love to come and Rachel is glaring at Quinn for inviting Artie because OF COURSE that means Puck has to come too.

They've been at the party for a half hour and the girls are less than impressed. The guy who invited Rachel is nowhere to be seen and the house is packed with people and alcohol and that means that nobody looks down when they walk so most of the people don't even see Rachel and she's just getting trampled. Quinn's hanging to the side with Artie when Rachel finally makes it back over to them after getting everybody some drinks.

Puck had taken off after a hot girl he swears is in one of his classes and they hadn't seen him in awhile. Rachel does not like the feeling she has in her stomach when she thinks about what that means.

It's Quinns turn to go get the drinks this time and on her way to the keg she gets waylaid by a very drunk frat boy. A very drunk and handsy frat boy who is trying to convince her to dance with him. At first Quinn had tried to politely decline and then sidestep him but he wasn't leaving her alone and she was starting to get annoyed.

While Puck was talking to The Hot Girl from his Psych 101 class (he thinks her name is Mandy but he can't remember. And now that he's standing up close and trying to have a conversation with her he thinks that she is too tall and wears too much make up and her hair is too blonde. So maybe he'll have to change her name from The Hot Girl from Psych 101 to The Kind of Good Looking From Far Away Girl from Psych 101.) he's been keeping his eye on the girls. Because when they look as hot as they currently do, then absolutely no good can come from it.

(And yes he'd tried this argument on the way over, but Rachel had pointed out that if Puck didn't know Quinn and Rachel already then he would have thought they were hot and would be hitting on them as soon as he saw them. Puck couldn't agree with this mainly because he was well aware of how good looking both of the girls were so he just stopped talking.)

He figures that as long as they're with Artie they can't get into too much trouble. But then Quinn had gotten stuck with that fratastic looking douche and he can tell that she's not interested and just wants him to leave her alone. He's kind of surprised she hasn't taken out the bitch claws yet but apparently she has decided to be slightly nicer in college than she was in high school. Puck does not expect this trait in her personality to last for too much longer.

Puck leaves Mandy? Mendi? Whatever he leaves her standing there and makes his way over to Quinn. Since he knows Rachel wouldn't approve of any violent measures to get rid of the Frat Douchebag he just smirks evilly and thinks of a more fun way to get rid of him.

Rachel and Artie have agreed that the smirk on Puck's face can't mean anything good for Quinn. Rachel's just happy to have found him again and relieved to see that he hasn't been sucking face with the hot girl he ditched them for earlier. At least he doesn't look like he's been kissing anyone. Not that she would care or anything she tells herself.

Quinn hadn't realized that Puck was next to her until she felt the weight from his arm around her shoulder as he pulls her in closer to his body.

"Hey baby I've been looking for you everywhere" Puck smiles as he talks and stares at Quinn. Quinn is just looking at him in confusion when the Frat Douchebag asks just who the hell he thinks he is. Puck just smirks and turns to Fratboy and says, "I'm her babydaddy".

Puck can literally feel Quinn glaring at him as he keeps his eyes on Frat Douchebag. Out of the corner of his eye he can also see Artie and Rachel looking on in horror. They're also placing bets on whether or not Quinn is going to just slap him (Artie's bet) or slap him AND knee him in the balls (Rachel's bet).

Now on the one hand, Quinn knows she should be pissed with Puck for saying this. She doesn't really want anyone at Ohio State to know about her past. Not because she's ashamed that she had a baby in high school, just because she figured it wasn't anyone else's business.

But on the other hand, this guy had been bugging her for the last 15 minutes and she's pretty sure he's not going to remember any of this conversation in the morning. And Pucks answer had shut him up extremely quickly and all she wanted to do was go back to where Rachel and Artie were. So she turned back to the guy and smiled and nodded and then laughed when he ran away.

Once they get back to the wall it's quickly decided to leave the party. It's when they are walking back on the street towards Campus that Quinn turns to Puck and punches him as hard as she can in his arm.

"What the hell is that for" Puck yells as he grabs onto his arm. Who knew cheerleaders could hit so hard?! He's pretty sure he's going to have a huge bruise on his arm tomorrow. And that's saying something because have you seen these guns?

"That was payback. That was your one chance to EVER call yourself my babydaddy EVER AGAIN. But thank you for helping in your own weird way" and Quinn continues to walk back to the dorms ahead of them. Puck is still recovering from the hit his shoulder just took and Artie is laughing so hard he can't wheel himself and Rachel is using Artie's wheelchair to hold herself up because she's in hysterics over the whole thing. She only wishes she had the encounter on video.

Once everyone recovers they decide that frat parties might not be their thing. But the girls look too pretty to go spend another night in the dorms and the guys haven't drunk enough beer for it to be considered a successful Friday night so they head back over to the bar where the management is lax about checking ID's and when they do check, they all have decent enough fakes to be let in. Once they get there they realize it's karaoke night. Score.

Maybe its because Puck was feeling slightly guilty towards Quinn about the whole "baby daddy" thing or maybe its because Quinn has decided he hasn't been punished enough for his behavior but when they dare him to go up and sing a Justin Bieber song he agrees. And tells them he'll look badass doing it too.

It's only when he's on stage getting ready to sing a Justin Bieber song that he starts to regret his idea. But he is extremely grateful for the group of drunk sorority girls up by the stage that he's pretty sure is going to get him through this.

Once the first strands of the song start up and the drunk girls realize it's their favorite teen idol he's going to have his pick of ladies to take home with him. Or to her place since he shares a room with Artie and hello awkward he is not about to bring a girl back there when someone else is in the room. And it has been awhile…he hasn't hooked up with anyone since college started. Which is weird. And hopefully going to change tonight.

But once he's up there singing and looking at the girls he realizes that he doesn't have the urge to hook up with drunken sorority girls…he'd rather be having more fun with Rachel. And Quinn and Artie too he quickly thinks.

It's near the end of the song and he looks at his friends table off to the side where Rachel and Quinn are holding up lighters and laughing at his ridiculously awesome dance moves that he realizes just how happy they look. And how Rachel singing along with him as he sings is adorable. So he winks at her from the stage as the song finishes and watches as her cheeks turn pink and her eyes light up.

By the time they've all had their turns singing (solos, duets and group songs. They pretty much owned the stage tonight) its nearing 3am. They're all more than a little tipsy so when they get to the girls dorm and see the hundreds of girls standing outside in their pajamas they realize that the fire alarm must have gone off again. And since they don't see the trucks yet they know it will be awhile before Quinn and Rachel can get to their rooms

Artie offers them to come back and watch movies in their dorm for the rest of the night. It ends up being one of those nights where no one goes to sleep and instead they keep drinking and laughing and watching movies until the sun comes up and the girls stumble home to sleep it off.

When Puck wakes up that night and sees that he has 52 new posts on his Facebook he is confused. And then he can't stop laughing when he realizes that the girls had captured his Justin Bieber imitation and had put it up on Facebook before they fell asleep. And now everyone he knows at home and at school have seen it. Fuck.


	3. Chapter 3

Halfway through the first semester they realize that the word midterm might be the scariest word in the English language. Rachel is FREAKING OUT over her Calculus while Quinn has no idea why she put off so much of the reading for her English Lit. course. Both girls have sworn up and down that they will never procrastinate EVER AGAIN if they can just make it through their midterms.

The weekend before midterms finds Rachel, Quinn and Artie in the library studying and writing papers and hyped up on far too much caffeine. It's Sunday night before Puck finally caves in and joins them. He has the least amount of studying to do and figures Sunday night is a great time to start.

The glares he got when he asked how long they had been there had scared him enough that he hadn't opened his mouth again in the two hours he'd been there. He was even afraid to bug Artie at this point…but he was bored.

Besides Rachel looks like she's near tears over her math junk and Quinn is just staring dazedly at her book and hasn't turned a page in the past 10 minutes. Artie is trying to not fall asleep and he isn't having much success. So Puck figures now is as good as time as any. "Are you guys planning on moving into the library this week or what?"

Rachel is too confused by her math to be mad about the interruption to her "studying". "I'll be here every night until Thursday when I get through this exam. And then I'm going out celebrating. And how come you aren't freaking out like everyone else on campus?"

"Easy. Three of my classes were assigned papers that I have already turned in, one class has a take home test due at the end of the week and my Psych midterm is tomorrow and I'm done. Jealous?"

"If you feel the need to brag could you do it somewhere else before I roll over you with my chair?" Artie had woken up enough to hear Puck's gloating about his midterm schedule and he did appreciate it in the least.

"I need coffee. Now. Otherwise there's no way I'm going to be able to stay awake tonight" Quinn's eyes were heavy and stressed so Artie quickly agreed that they should all take a break before their brains explode.

What was supposed to be a twenty minute coffee break turned into an hour break in the library café. Somewhere along the way the conversation turned towards Thanksgiving which was coming up in a few weeks. Artie, Puck and Rachel all confirm that they're going home and when it's Quinn's turn they notice she's staring awkwardly at her coffee cup.

"Quinn? Are you going back to stay with the Hummels?" Rachel and Artie were looking at her with concern so she sighed and explained.

"My parents didn't invite me to their house for Thanksgiving. And Mrs. Hudson moved in with Mr. Hummel and Kurt is going to stay in New York since he'll be home for a few weeks at Christmas. I don't know if Finn will be home but it would still be awkward so I'll probably just stay here."

Suddenly all three of her tablemates are talking at the same time:

"You are absolutely NOT staying here all by yourself over Thanksgiving. You can come home and stay with me. My dads won't care and they actually cook and go all out. We can watch the Parade together!"

"Damn your parents are such jackasses. You should have just moved in with me in high school when I asked. You know my mom is pretty cool and my sister isn't as batshit crazy as she used to be. You can stay with us from now on…if you want."

"Quinn…you can come home with me. Anytime. You always have a place to stay at my house and I'll sleep on the couch or something. It could be fun"

When they all stop talking over each other they realize that Quinn has tears in her eyes and is trying to discretely wipe them away. She whispers thank you and takes Rachel up on her offer. She figures it will end up being the least awkward of the three and as weird as it is, she spends most of her time with the girl anyway.

Midterms pass in a haze of coffee and sleepless nights in the library. Basically it sucks. After her last exam on Friday, Rachel wanders back to her dorm and promptly passes out. Only to be rudely awoken by the bang of her door being flung open a short time later.

"You have no idea how much I hate you." She didn't even roll over or open her eyes. She doesn't need to. She knows it's Noah.

"You look like shit"

"Leave. Now."

"Get up! We're all going out. Artie and Quinn are in. They're already at that Mexican place that doesn't card waiting for us."

"It's 3pm on a Friday. Shouldn't we at least wait until the sun goes down?"

"No. Midterms are finally over and were celebrating. Get dressed."

It takes Rachel close to an hour to get showered and dressed and Puck whines the entire time that she's taking too long. She points out it would have gone quicker if he would have left her room so she could have gotten dressed in there instead of walking back and forth to the bathroom at the end of the hall. He admits that the end result is totally worth the time she put in, but there's no way in hell he's going to tell her that.

By the time they get to the restaurant, Quinn and Artie are 2 pitchers of margaritas ahead of them. And a few tequila shots. Which might explain why Quinn is sitting in Artie's lap rather than in her own chair. Rachel is pretty sure Quinn has a slight crush on Artie, but Quinn's never mentioned anything so Rachel never brought it up. Rachel thinks she might have to get Quinn slightly tipsy one night for her to admit it…and with this thought Rachel realizes she has been spending far too much time around Noah.

It doesn't take long for Puck and Rachel to catch up to the other two. Some of Puck's ultimate frisbee friends show up, and then some of Rachel's friends from her Theatre classes. And then Quinn recognizes some girls from her hall and Artie has a few friends from his Art History class show up. Soon their table of 4 has grown into half the restaurant.

Puck thinks midterms just might be worth it if this is the kind of fun that comes after it. After everyone finally eats something, if only to help with the affects of the alcohol, they decided to head over to one of their favorite bars and listen to a local band that's halfway decent. He notices one of his frisbee friends hanging around Rachel, but it doesn't bother him until the guy throws an arm around Rachel's should on the walk over to the bar. This bothers him slightly but he tries to ignore it. He doesn't know James all that well. Hes heard him talk about some of the girls hes hooked up though and he knows that he doesn't want Rachel added to that list. He also knows Rachel has a pretty good "bullshit radar" so if the guy tries anything, hes pretty sure she can take care of herself. Maybe he can get her to talk to James about showtunes. If that's not the biggest turnoff in the world, he doesn't know what is. But he can't say anything because he can feel Quinn looking at him out of the corner of her eye and he doesn't want her to get the wrong idea like hes interested in Berry.

So Puck just walks in front of them so he can't see the dude hitting on Rachel. He thinks it's a great plan until he hears her giggling at something that James has said and Puck realizes hes going to have to walk way faster. So he just turns and focuses his attention on one of the girls from Quinn's hall. She's hot and looks more than willing to distract him from his thoughts for the evening.

Artie and Quinn had made bets earlier in the evening on how long it would take Puck and Rachel to hook up and who would cave first. Artie had bet that Rachel would make the first move. But after seeing the way Puck had glared at the guy hitting on Rachel, he kind of wishes he'd bet on Puck. He's pretty sure he's going to owe Quinn $10 in the near future.

The group makes it into the bar and finds out its $1 jello shot night. Puck is pretty sure that this means the evening is about to turn into a shit show and he's totally ok with it. The girl from Quinn's hall is cute and totally interested in him and had mentioned that her roommate was out of town this weekend. He's pretty sure he's finally FINALLY going to be getting lucky.

Artie and Quinn have commandeered a table on the upper level where they can watch all the action without getting in the way and make sure that Artie can see everything. He feels kind of bad that because hes in the chair he and Quinn always seem to be on the sidelines of the action. He mentioned this to her once and she rolled her eyes and told him he was being stupid. And looking at her now as she's sitting next to him with a drink in her hand and singing along with the band, he's really happy she's next to him.

From their vantage point they can see Puck trying to hit on the girl from Quinn's hall (Abby- as Quinn has informed him) and Rachel and James dancing up by the stage. Quinn notices that Rachel looks kind of annoyed though and they continue to watch her to see what's up.

Rachel thought James was cute and funny on their walk over from the restaurant. Now she just thinks that hes far too drunk and the inappropriate comments about them leaving to go hook up are just getting on her nerves. Maybe it's the lack of sleep combined with the alcohol but she can feel her patience wearing thin. She had politely declined at least twice and he still wouldn't give up.

Puck is supremely grateful that Abby has invited him back to her place. He was just going to tell the others to not worry about him for the rest of the night and let Artie know he gets the room to himself. He spots Quinn and Artie upstairs by the balcony.

"5$ says she slaps him" Quinn says to Artie.

"No way. Too many witnesses. I bet she does her diva storm off if he tries to grope her again" Artie decides he wants evidence of another Berry Storm Out so he pulls out his camera phone.

Puck is confused, only until he looks at the dance floor in time to see Rachel turn and knee James in the balls. James crumples to the floor immediately and Rachel is storming up the stairs towards him before they can even register what happened.

"HOLY SHIT!" Puck cannot believe he just witnessed that. And is so thankful that Artie got in on camera because now he cant watch it whenever he wants.

Rachel makes her way upstairs, hoping for some comfort from Quinn, only to find her three friends nearly hyperventilating from laughter. She is NOT amused.

"I'm just so glad you guys are enjoying the floor show. Honestly, Noah get off the floor it wasn't that funny. Thank you all for your unwaverying support in my time of need. I hate you all... STOP LAUGHING! I'm leaving"

Puck catches up with her first just outside the bar. Quinn and Artie aren't that far behind, but it had taken them longer to get through the crowd. It wasn't helping that they were arguing over the terms of their bet...Quinn was arguing that since Rachel had resorted to physical violence, it means she was closer to winning the bet than Artie was. Artie is trying to argue that she did storm off…so they have to call it a tie.

"Berry. That was single handedly the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Just don't ever do it to me."

And with that he throws his arm across her shoulders and walks her back to her dorm. He and Artie spend the trip recalling her awesome takedown of the frisbee douche while Quinn just tries to keep her laughter quiet enough that it doesn't piss Rachel off again.

It doesn't even occur to Puck until later when hes laying in his bed that he left Abby back at the bar. Shit.

The next morning Rachel wakes up and signs on to her computer only to find video evidence of her drunkenly kneeing that jackass in the balls all over Facebook. It seems that Mike, Matt and Santana all agree that it was totally amazing and that she is officially a "badass". Santana also offered to show her some more self defense moves if shes interested. Rachel shudders at the thought of what kind of moves Santana could show her. That girl is scary strong.

Tina, Kurt and Mercedes all think that maybe Puck has been a negative influence on her in college since they can't ever really picture the Rachel that they used to know getting drunk and kicking someone's ass. Finn points out that Rachel has slapped him on occasion so maybe she's more okay with physical violence than they all thought. And Britney just typed half a sentence and then got confused by something shiny ad hit send.

Quinn comes down later that morning to laugh at her and Rachel just thinks about payback since she knows it was either her or Artie that taped the incident. And she will have payback.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 **

**I Still don't own anything. Thanks for the reviews it's been fun. The tattoo story is true.  
**

They all know that Thanksgiving is going to be the last time they get to have a break before finals start. Rachel isn't sure she's quite ready for finals. She still hasn't gotten over the stress of midterms. It's after dinner on the Monday night before they are all to leave town and Rachel is so looking forward to an evening alone with some popcorn and watching "Dancing with the Stars".

All of this is shot to hell when her roommate storms in. Apparently her and her boyfriend have broken up again, and she's in a fight with some of the other sorority pledges which leaves her with nowhere else to go but her own dorm room. Which she hasn't been in in about 3 weeks.

There is only 20 min. before her show starts and she is NOT about to miss it because of some ridiculous drama going on in this girls life. She quickly makes her escape and starts texting Noah. She doesn't even care if he's there, she just needs his room. And his TV.

Now Rachel would have gone to Quinn's room if she didn't already know that Quinn had a huge paper due tomorrow and was currently in the library with Artie. Who was studying for some test or something. Rachel might not be the best listener in the world, but she at least gets some of the facts. Sort of. Sometimes.

Noah gets a text from Rachel, "The roommate monster just stormed in. I refuse to miss Dancing With the Stars because of her. I'm coming over."

Noah had been playing Call of Duty over the internet with Matt, Mike and Finn. But he figures a four hour marathon is as good as any time to call it quits. He has learned some things about Rachel Berry in the past few months. One of the main rules being that she will cut a bitch if she misses Dancing With the Stars. So he tells her to come on over.

Rachel barges into his room in a way that makes Noah sort of proud. Doesn't even say hello, just flops down onto his bed and makes sure the channel is set. "I hate my roommate. It was like the one rule that I mentioned when I met her. I watch Dancing With the Stars. Religiously. I told her that. And she comes in all upset about some stupid fight her and the Giant had and I DON'T CARE. She knows the rules!" Rachel's ranting hardly even phases Puck anymore. He knows when to nod and smile and agree. And honestly, this isn't something he feels like busting her on. He already knows how crazy she is. No need to stir it up anymore than it already is.

He's witnessed these Dancing With he Stars nights with her and Quinn before and he knows the 2 rules:

1-Make sure alcohol (preferably wine, but they aren't too picky) is present and

2- No talking until commercials.

He almost got thrown out of the room on the first night by Rachel. Quinn apparently watches the show, just not with the same fervor that Rachel shows. Also, Quinn seems to be more sane than Rachel, Puck thinks.

So he just pulls out some beer for him and Rachel and settles down on the bed with Rachel to watch people who used to be famous try and become famous again. Also, its seriously entertaining. But he's never EVER going to admit that.

"Why didn't you go watch in Quinn's room?" He's popping open their bottles and passing her one as he asks.

"Quinn has a major paper due tomorrow that she had been putting off. I'm not allowed to tell her anything about it. She's going to watch all of it tomorrow. So don't tell her how the dances went!"

Even if Puck wanted to tell Quinn who danced what and how they did, he's pretty sure he'd never be able to explain ANYTHING about this show. Least of all, why he's watching it with Rachel.

It never occurs to either of them that since Artie isn't there, Rachel could totally sit on his bed.

Quinn knew she never should have put this paper off until last minute. 10 pages on the works of James Joyce just might kill her. And she knows if she doesn't do a really, _really _good job then the professor is going to fail her. This dude has a tattoo of James Joyce tattooed on his arm (he showed it to the class and then explained that he got it while he was getting his masters and during a drinking bender. It had taken everything in Quinn to NOT look horrified when he took off his shirt to show him. English professors are not known for their good looking physique.)

She is grateful that at least she isn't suffering alone. Because the frustrated noises coming from Artie's side of the table sound like he's in serious trouble for his exam tomorrow.

"Aaaahhhh" Artie's banging of his head on the table is really distracting to her paper writing. And also seriously funny.

"You need a break Artie. Can't anyone help you understand that computer class stuff?"

"This girl from my class is going to be here in 20 minutes and she's way smarter than I am and she promised to help me out. I was hoping to not look like a complete and total fool in front of her though. Apparently that's not happening" Artie notices that Quinn looks a little weird at this statement but doesn't really give it much thought since the girl from his class appears in the door way.

"Thank God Amy is here. Quinn I'll be back. Don't leave without me. I'll walk you back to your dorm when we get done so you don't have to walk alone. And so no one will take advantage of a kid in a wheelchair."

Quinn just nods. She had already figured that they'd be walking back together. She just didn't count on him leaving her alone to work on this paper while he works with some other girl. Who wasn't a hideously ugly computer sciences major like she'd hoped. She tries to ignore why it bothers her so much and turns to focus on her paper.

She only stops working on her paper to send in her email votes for her favorite contestant on DWTS. She figures she deserves the distraction and if the hot former actor guy gets voted off then she will be seriously pissed.

After Artie makes it back and Quinn has finished her paper, Artie walks (rolls) her back to her dorm. Artie leaves her and rolls on across the way to his room and opens the door. When he gets back to his room, the last thing he expects to find is Rachel and Puck spooning. Honest to God spooning. He pulls out his camera phone and snaps a few pictures. Then shuts the door and rolls on down to a kid he knows will still be awake at midnight and is in his class tomorrow with the exam. He figures one or two more hours of studying can't hurt. He also already sent the picture to Quinn.

Noah wakes up when he hears the door close, but when he opens his eyes all he sees is Rachel's neck. And her long brown hair is between them and smells so good. So he maybe pulls her closer to him.

Rachel just feels warm all over. She rolls over in her sleep and opens her eyes to Noah. She thinks he's just so gorgeous and so much fun. She starts when her eyes reach his face and realize that he is awake and staring at her. His grip on her hips tightens and Rachel is just staring, staring at his beautiful face and leaning in slowly.

The fire alarm is so loud and Rachel is so surprised at the interruption to her quiet with Noah that she kind of screams a little bit.

Noah is beyond startled. That damn alarm is so fucking loud and it's completely ruined whatever moment he was about to have with Rachel. They look at each other and quickly hop out of Noah's bed and head for the stairs. Once they're outside, they meet up with Artie. She would have invited the boys to her room, but she knows her roommate is in the room and Quinn's roommate never leaves her room.

Her and Noah barely make eye contact as they say good night and Artie can barely contain his smirk at the awkwardness of the affair. Puck and Artie hangout on the sidewalk for the next hour just waiting for the firemen to clear their building. Artie doesn't bring up Rachel. He likes his face the way it is, thank you very much.

The drive home to Lima for Thanksgiving turns into the first of many road trips for the four of them. They take Rachel's car which is the only one that will fit all of them (Quinn's bug was a no go, Puck's truck only seats two safely and Artie's handicapable was in the shop for computer problems) means the girls have control over the music and Puck swears that if he hears one more Lady Gaga, Britney or Beyonce song he is going to rip his ears off.

He demands Rachel pull over and let him drive the last hour. Normally she wouldn't let anyone else EVER drive her car, but she's so tired from the past week and having her roommate around 24/7 that she agrees it sounds like a good idea. Rachel pulls over at a gas station and the girls in to go get junk food while Puck helps Artie move up into the front seat.

Rachel doesn't notice until it's too late that he has taken her IPOD and hidden it somewhere and connected his instead. She'd argue with him over his choice in music but it's been a little awkward ever since the…almost moment…that they'd shared in his dorm room. She's also noticed that Quinn seems a little frosty towards Artie at the moment and she's going to spend the weekend trying to figure out what's going on with the two of them.

Puck is happy just driving and jamming out to his tunes when Artie just had to go and suggest playing car games. They only have an hour left and he was hoping to spend at least some of that in relative silence because he knows he won't get that at home with his crazy mom and even crazier sister.

The argument over which car game they should play goes like this:

Artie: Zichdog (vetoed because they haven't seen any dogs yet on the drive and aren't likely to)

Quinn: License plate game (vetoed because it's boring)

Puck: Never Have I Ever (vetoed for lack of alcohol available)

Rachel: Name That Tune (agreed upon using Pucks IPOD)

"Boys vs. Girls. Get ready to have your asses handed to you." Puck proclaims.

He's fairly confident that Rachel won't know half the songs on his IPOD and will be the subsequent loser in this game. He's actually looking forward to it. He's also pretty sure Artie knows everything about music. He's confident the girls will be buying them dinner at some point over the weekend.

What he didn't count on was Quinn's frankly surprising knowledge of rap songs or Rachel's knowledge of ALL MUSIC. The girls just decimate the boys. It's not even a game. They demand a victory song to sing and Puck nearly swerves into oncoming traffic when Rachel puts on "I'm On A Boat". He only catches glances of their routine in the rear view mirror, but it's enough to keep him laughing all the way back to Lima.

Puck drops Artie off and then heads to his place. Once he pulls up to his house, he gets out and starts to get his bags out. Rachel moves to the drivers seat and Quinn is still singing random rap songs that he never even thought she knew. As he walks past the drivers window he sticks his head in close to Rachel's and whispers in her ear "Can't wait to buy you dinner this weekend. Happy Thanksgiving." And then he's gone, up into his house.

Rachel is trying to duck her head and hide her blush from Quinn who is openly gaping at her now. She quickly backs out of the driveway, turning up the music to drown out any attempts from Quinn at questions.

The girls get to Rachel's house and her dads are so excited to have Rachel home and that she even brought a friend with her (never mind the friend is Quinn. They never knew much about her high school years anyway) that they rush out of the house with open arms and start unloading the car before Rachel can even put it in park.

It's the first moment out of many moments during the weekend that Quinn is slightly jealous of Rachel's parents. She hasn't heard from her own in a few months, besides a random drunken email from her mother a few weeks ago that she didn't even bother to respond to.

The girls go in and get settled and Rachel's dad have ordered in some takeout and demand that the girls tell them everything about their first semester.

Quinn is surprised when Rachel's dads let the girls drink wine with them, but Rachel's dads are nothing but happy to share. It's not like they don't know the girls aren't drinking at school and they know they aren't going anywhere tonight so the girls are free to drink as much as they like.

The wine and the fun might contribute to how Quinn reacts when Rachel's dads insist they all play Karaoke Revolution. There's hand clapping and shouting and demanding that her and Rachel go first. The girls relive some of their Madonna days and clap along to when her dads go. When Quinn goes to sleep that night, she can't help but think that Rachel might be the luckiest girl ever to have such fun and caring parents.

This happy feeling lasts until the next day when she wakes up and checks her email and sees the extraordinary number of Facebook Messages she has. A sinking feeling grabs hold of her when she opens it up and see's two new videos of her. The first, her and Rachel ROCKING OUT to "I'm On A Boat" in the car. She knows she has Artie to thank for this. She's also kind of OK with it since that song is amazing and she and Rachel look great rapping.

The second video is a not so much. She is somewhat surprised that she still remembers all of the dance moves to "Bye Bye Bye". She is, however, not thrilled that everyone she's ever met now knows that she still knows those dance moves.


	5. Chapter 5

**I own nothing. And thanks for the reviews **

* * *

Quinn wakes up Thanksgiving morning to singing. From the kitchen. She always thought Rachel Berry's life had been like a Disney movie, now she has the proof to back it up. She swears that if there are birds down there helping her make the Thanksgiving meal, Quinn is leaving.

It's early enough that the parade hasn't started yet. It means that Quinn has time for a cup of coffee and to get settled on the couch to watch it. It hurts to think that she misses Kurt so much this morning. For the past two years, Thanksgivings had been spent with him on the couch at the Hummel's, watching the parade. But this year, Kurt is actually in NYC watching it in person, and Mr. Hummel is probably watching it with Finn's mom. Who rightfully hates her.

Quinn's phone beeps.

**Kurt (9:10 AM)** Wish you were here hot stuff.

Kurt sent her a text from the parade route where he and his new boyfriend are watching the parade. They look cold. She's still insanely jealous that he gets to see it in person though.

Quinn settles in on the Berry's couch and is already in a bad mood for Thanksgiving. She misses Kurt. She even misses her horrible family on these holidays. It's hard to think that a mistake she made at 16, and the mistakes her parents made after, have resulted in an irreparable rift in her family. Holidays Suck.

She doesn't expect Rachel to take a seat on the other end of the couch and distract her from her melancholy thoughts. Rachel's commentary on costumes, the obvious lip singing of the performers and the fake happiness of the commentators cheers Quinn right up. She even laughs when Rachel's dads come in and sit on the love seat and comment on the horrible Rockette's costumes (Quinn and Rachel agree that they should just stick with the skimpy Santa costumes. Anything else makes them look like candy canes, and that is just not flattering, they say.)

The Berry's have a way of making people feel welcome without even trying to. Quinn thinks maybe she would have preferred to be here anyway, instead of at home with parent's who would have started drinking at 9 am and had Thanksgiving catered in.

* * *

Artie's family always celebrates Thanksgiving the same every year. His mom gets up early to get things in the oven, and then makes sure the rest of the family is awake to watch the parade together. While he appreciates his mom's hard work, he kind of wishes he was allowed to do more in the kitchen to help. He gets bored watching the parade. It would have distracted him from the thoughts of how Quinn was handling this holiday. He knows she misses her family (well, kind of misses her family. Or how her family used to be.) and that she had gotten used to living with Kurt and his dad and now she couldn't spend it with them anymore since Finn's mom had moved in. He knows Mr. Hummel would have loved to have her back for Thanksgiving, but without Kurt as a buffer it would have been to weird.

He knows she feels like she can't go back there because of Finn's mom. He wishes she had come home with him instead of Rachel. He truly can not enjoy this day until he knows shes OK. He knows it's weird to worry about her this much, but he starts texting her halfway through the parade.

**Artie (10:13 AM):** How's life over at the Berry's? Did you beat Rachel over the head with a frying pan for singing too many show tunes?

**Quinn (10:14 AM):** I woke up to them singing. From the kitchen. It was like "Enchanted". Things got better from there though. What's your Thanksgiving like?

**Artie (10:16 AM):** The same as every year. Not allowed to help. Bored by the parade. Little brother is a pain in the ass. Big family gathering later on this afternoon. Wish I was hanging with you guys instead.

**Quinn (10:20 AM):** well, I think they do Thanksgiving early here. You should come over tonight when you get done.

"Hey Rachel, would it be OK if Artie came over later on tonight?" Quinn glances over to Rachel sitting on the edge of the couch. Rachel's face lights up.

"Yea that's fine. I thought you were kind of mad at Artie though the other day? What was going on?" Rachel seriously thinks Quinn has a crush on Artie. But she can't know for sure because they've never talked about it before. Rachel has not really ever participated in girl talk before, but she WILL find out whats going before Thanksgiving is over though.

"Oh, I was kind of mad because he ditched me in the library the other night to go study with some girl from his class. I'm over it." Quinn effectively shuts down any other questions might have asked by turning her attention back to her phone.

Quinn and Artie's text message conversation continues throughout the entire day. She laughs at his ideas on how to improve the musical acts and he grins when she assures him that she'd look better in a Rockettes costume than any of the girls currently on TV.

A few hours later, when Rachel asks why Quinn is smiling so much, Quinn just laughs and says she's happy not to be stuck in her room for the holiday and eating crappy cafeteria food.

Rachel isn't sure she believes her.

* * *

Pucks' Thanksgiving is different. Normally, his mom would have been working because she gets time and a half for holidays. He usually orders takeout for him and his sister and they watch movies on TV together. It's become a tradition in the past few years to watch "Home Alone" together and order takeout.

This year, he wakes up to noises in the kitchen. And music. And his mom singing along.

He drags himself out of bed, pulls on some sweat pants and heads to the kitchen. Noah nearly drops dead at the sight in front of him.

His mom is in the kitchen. Wearing an apron. And prepping a turkey.

"Woman what you doing?" He can't even remember the last time they spent Thanksgiving together as a family.

"Don't call me woman. I'm making Thanksgiving dinner. What does it look like I'm doing?" His mother was putting the turkey in the pan, and if Noah wasn't mistaken, it looked like she was getting ready to stuff it with herbs and spices.

Puck honestly couldn't remember the last time they had used the kitchen. They were a strictly TV dinner and takeout dinner kind of family. So it's not his fault if he was surprised by all of the kitchen activity.

He eyes her suspiciously.

"Seriously. What's going on? Are you sick? Who's dying?" He's starting to panic because why would she not be at work when she could make more money that they always seemed to need. And the only time he could ever remember her cooking was when his Grandma died.

"Calm down. No one is sick or dying. I've just missed you since you have been gone. The house is too quiet. I wanted to spend this holiday with my children and not at work. Besides, I got a raise a few weeks ago and things are a little less tight these days." She was proud of the fact that she'd earned that raise. And Noah had (surprisingly) gotten a semi decent scholarship to OSU. She thought she could afford to take this holiday off from work. And not even her crazy son was going to ruin it for her.

"Are you sure the oven even works? Don't they fall into disrepair after a few years of non-use?" He's fairly certain that could be true.

"Get out of the kitchen before I throw this spoon at you. Thanksgiving dinner will be ready around 3. Go play with your sister." She's holding the spoon threateningly in one hand and Puck hightails it out of there. He's pissed her off enough in the past that he knows she'll throw things at him if she thinks he deserves it.

So he wanders out to the couch and finds Sarah watching the parade and eating pop-tarts. He steals one and sits on the other end of the couch, making sure his feet are just close enough to bug her. He's missed having the squirt around the bug.

It's halfway through the parade when he realizes he left his phone upstairs. He has a few new texts. One from Artie, one from Quinn and a whole handful from Rachel. He snorts out loud when he realizes that Rachel has had a small conversation through text messages and he wasn't even needed for any of it.

**Artie (10:30 AM):** I'm going over to hang out with the girls later tonight. You should come. It'll be an experience to witness Berry's home life. Quinn said she woke up to singing this morning.

(Noah doesn't find it hard to believe that being woken up by singing is a normal occurrence in the Berry house. He's been kind of happy that Rachel's roommate hasn't been around so much, cuz he's pretty sure that girl would have tried to silence Rachel way early on in the semester with her morning vocal warm up.)

**Quinn (10:34 AM):** Come over to Rachel's later. Artie will be here so you won't be hanging out with just your two of your many, many ex-girlfriends.

(Haha Quinn. Ha. ha.)

**Rachel (10:36 AM):** Happy Thanksgiving Noah! I'd like to extend an invitation to my house this evening if your Thanksgiving Day festivities permit you to come. Quinn and I have already invited Artie, who has agreed to come. It will be an eve

**Rachel (10:36 AM cont.):** ning of holiday themed movies (I know we're Jewish and all that but some of the best movie musicals ever made are Christmas movies. I don't care if that makes me a bad Jew. It's just true. There aren't very many Hanukkah mo

**Rachel (10:37 AM cont.):** views to watch out there you know?) and Karaoke Revolution. I also own Dance Dance Revolution if you are partial to playing that. Artie (and Quinn) will also be in attendance (Do you think they like each other? What's going on there?) Please RSVP when you know if you are able to attend.

Noah smiles to himself and texts Rachel back.

**Noah (11:28 AM):** I'll be over later. Just tell me what time. I'll kick your ass at Dance Dance Revolution. (I don't know about Artie and Quinn. I make it a point not to talk to other guys about my ex- girlfriends. I don't really encourage other guys to go out with my exes.)

He smirks to himself and sends out a text that he knows will piss her off.

**Noah (11:30 AM):** and yes, that's why the guy at the end of my hall won't flirt with you anymore.

**Rachel (11:35 AM):** WHAT did you say to Will? I wondered why he started acting all weird around me…and I think he was getting ready to ask me out! What is wrong with you?

Noah just laughs, thinking about how he told Will about Rachel's penchant for giving her boyfriends "Crazy Cat Calendars". He knew she only did it the one time, but still. Once was enough.

Puck picks up Artie around 6 and they go on over to Rachel's. Puck never met Rachel's dads while they were "dating" in high school. But the dad who opens the door introduces himself as Stan and tells them that the girls fell asleep on the couches after they had their late dinner.

Puck realizes that the girls had fallen asleep watching "Miracle on 34th Street". He would have fallen asleep too if they made him watch that movie. That shit was boring. He makes his way over to Rachel, who fell asleep all squished up on the love seat and notices that her mouth is moving.

Noah leans his head in closer to see if he can hear what she's saying. He's 99% sure she's singing in her sleep, he just can't make out the words to the song. He's staring at her mouth and leaning in closer when he notices that it's stopped moving. His gaze lingers for a few more seconds on her now still lips before moving up to her eyes. Which are open. Shit.

Rachel guesses that she had fallen asleep watching the movie, but is momentarily confused when she opens her eyes and sees…Noah. And Noah seems to be staring at her lips. She's about to ask him just what he thinks he's doing when he glances up and looks her in the eye.

Rachel can not, for the life of her, remember what she was going to say. But what she can remember is what it felt like all those years ago to have his lips on hers. And she wishes they were currently on hers right now.

Puck kind of feels like Rachel Berry is a magnet. He can't stop moving towards her, even when his mind is screaming at him that "NOW IS NOT THE TIME."

"Who want's some dessert? We have pumpkin pie and ice cream!" Rachel's other dad strides into the room, having no idea that he's just interrupted a moment between his daughter and the former town badass. Puck and Rachel spring apart like they were shrapnel.

Artie pipes up that he would love some pumpkin pie, and Quinn can barely conceal her laughter at the shock at being interrupted on Rachel and Puck's face. Quinn was getting ready to interrupt them anyway, since if they started hooking up tonight she would totally lose her bet with Artie. And she wasn't about to let that happen.

Artie had come into the house and wheeled right over to where Quinn was sleeping. He thought she looked beautiful lying on the couch, but also far too comfortable. And he really wanted to kick her ass at Karaoke Revolution, so he started poking her in her side and she was swatting at him in her sleep until she woke up.

She was still glaring at him until she glances over his shoulder and notices what was going on on the other side of the room.

"Ssshhh…Artie look!" Artie looks over at the couch and his eyes go wide. Noah was kneeling next to Rachel's sofa, and from the looks of it…he was totally going to win his bet with Quinn.

"Haha you lose. You owe me $10!" Quinn realizes that he's right, he did bet that they would get together over the Thanksgiving holidays (she had bet by New Years). Just as she opens her mouth to yell…something…anything to win the bet, Rachel's dad Andrew walks into the room and offers pie. She's never been more grateful to pumpkin pie. Quinn refuses to loses a bet to anyone.

They all go into the kitchen for some pie and end up telling her dads all about the fun they've been having at college. Puck, Artie and Quinn are nearly delirious with laughter when the realize Rachel hasn't told them about kneeing that frat boy in the balls. Rachel is red with embarrassment when Quinn and Puck go through a total scene by scene re-enactment for her dads.

"Yo baby you know you wanna get with this!" Noah plays that frat boy douche bag with frightening accuracy.

"No. Unhand me you filthy, uncouth young man!" Quinn is clearly relishing her role as Rachel and playing up the dramatics of the moment a little too much, Rachel thinks.

Rachel's dads are nearly besides themselves with laughter and its at that point that Rachel demands that the kids go into the living room and the parents go to bed. The college students head into the TV room and set up Karaoke Revolution. They take turns singing alone and singing duets before they decide to watch "Elf".

They all quote their favorite lines to each other throughout the movie. Rachel drew the line when Noah tried to get up on the couch tried to re-enact putting the star on the tree (there was no tree…he just wanted to jump on the couch.)

After "Elf", Rachel puts on "Holiday Inn" and makes popcorn. She and Noah settle on the love seat and share a popcorn bowl while Quinn helps Artie out of his chair and settle onto the bigger couch with her. Halfway through the movie Rachel glances over at them and sees that Quinn has fallen asleep with her head on a pillow in Artie's lap. Artie is dozing against the couch with his arm around Quinn.

Rachel takes another picture to keep in her evidence file of "Artie and Quinn". One day she's going to show Quinn all of these pictures and ask her just what the hell is going on. Not that she has any room to talk. She's currently settled into Noah's side with her head leaning back on his shoulder…because his arm is wrapped around her.

When the movie ends, neither Rachel nor Noah make any move to get up. Noah has never been more content to just sit and watch movie credits. Rachel sighs contentedly next to him.

"When do you want to go for that dinner I owe you?" He whispers this into her ear. He knows that technically he AND Artie owe Rachel AND Quinn dinner. But he's hoping she's willing to overlook that.

She looks at him thoughtfully. "Well, tomorrow is that Glee kids get together for anyone in town at Mr. Schue's and Saturday is when my aunt is coming into town to see us. So I guess not until we get back to school?"

"It's a date." He looks her in the eyes as he says this, hoping she gets that it's more than a bet at this point. She smiles at him and agrees. Rachel never thought she'd say this, but she can't wait to get back to Ohio State.

When Puck and Artie leave, Quinn looks at Rachel and asks her what's up with all the smiling. Rachel just says that she's just happy to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Quinn isn't sure she believes her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Glee isn't mine. No matter how much I wish it was :)**

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The Glee kids get together for anyone in town probably didn't go the way that Emma wanted it to. Her and Will had gotten together at graduation last year, and she had since moved in with him. She probably thought the kids would come over, sit down nicely and talk politely one at a time about all that good clean fun they'd been having at College.

She did not expect to be in the kitchen with the girls, watching them guzzle wine and getting sex tips from Santana.

When everyone had gotten to the house, the boys had gone out back with Will (he insisted they call him Will now that they were graduated and drinking beer in his house. It was only slightly weird to be calling their former teacher by his first name.) He had put in a fire pit in the backyard of his new house and they were planning a bonfire and a cook out. He'd been pretty cool about the fact that there was some serious underage drinking going on at his own house. But he figured that he wasn't their teacher anymore and had already told them that if they didn't have a sober ride home then they'd be sleeping on his couch or floor.

Puck and Artie were out back listening to Mike and Matt's plan to head out to California and audition for "So You Think You Can Dance" in the spring and manning the grill. Puck's pretty sure he's going to be seeing those guys on TV in the near future.

"So Finn, how do you like University of Cincinnati?" Will had worked with Finn his entire senior year and helped him get the scholarships he needed to get to school.

"It's different ya know? It's nice being out of Lima and having people not know everything about my business and what happened in high school. And it's kinda weird because I just found out that Santana goes there? Did anyone else know she goes there?" Finn had gotten over all the baby drama stuff, but it had always followed him around high school. He seriously loved the fact that no one at college knew anything about his high school days.

Well, he had felt that way until he was in the library earlier in the week and saw Santana sitting across the room. That had been weird.

"Awesome. The girl you lost your virginity to is the one girl you end up at school with. Seriously awesome." Will nearly spits out his beer at Pucks comment while the rest of the guys just nod and laugh. Finn just shrugs…because yea, it's awkward.

At this point, Will realizes they all need some more beer so he and Puck head back into the kitchen to put together a cooler so they don't have to keep coming in and out of the house. The girls were inside helping Emma put together the rest of the food. Or watching Emma put together the rest of the food since she wouldn't let them touch anything.

As they're walking down the hallway towards the kitchen, Will notices Emma is staring at him and mouthing the words "Help Me!". She looks kind of desperate. Puck notices this as well and wonders what the hell the girls have done to freak out Emma so badly.

"So, if you lean over him and kind of roll your hips a bit, it totally enhances everything." Will makes it into the room just as Santana is unleashing some of her sexual wisdom on Emma. Her eyes are wide open and he can tell she is trying to steadfastly ignore whatever Santana is telling her. Quinn and Rachel are sitting at the counter and trying not to giggle at the look on Emma's face, while Tina is standing on the other side of Santana and agreeing with her.

Puck is just laughing. He knows exactly what Santana is doing. He totally knows that Santana is trying to freak out Emma and see just how far she'll let Santana go with this conversation. He decides to join in.

"Oh yeah. Damn that was hot. But you know what was really good that you used to do? Remember that one time in the locker room showers when we…" Will realizes he needs to shut this conversation down NOW before Emma is scarred anymore than she already is.

"Ok then. Where are Brittany and Mercedes this lovely Thanksgiving holiday?" Will had interrupted Puck when the story was just getting good. Puck looks over at Santana and they roll their eyes at each other and laugh.

"Brittany got lost driving home and ended up in Michigan. Her parents went to go and get her this morning." Rachel says all of this while staring at her wine glass. She had been cool with all the sex talk from Santana until Puck came in and she realized that most of Santana's knowledge about sex had been put into practice with Puck. And it makes her really uncomfortable to think about them having sex.

Quinn glances over at Rachel and can tell that Rachel is silently freaking out so she says, "And Mercedes parents wanted her to go visit some family in Indiana, but she'll be around at Christmas too." She picks up the bottle and pours Rachel another glass of wine since she downed the last one in about 3 sips after Puck's revelation about the locker room.

"BURGERS ARE READY!" Matt's bellowing from the backyard probably let the entire neighborhood know that the burgers were ready. The guys bring in the food and everyone grabs a plate and settles around the kitchen. Emma had tried to get Will to agree to a more formal dinner party, and then he had politely reminded her just who they were having over. She had agreed quickly that maybe a casual gathering was the way to go. It was killing her though, to watch them all eating from paper plates and standing up at various spots around the kitchen.

She also decides that maybe it's best to not watch the eating habits of the boys. They're all eating like they haven't had a decent meal in months, never mind the fact that they probably stuffed themselves full of food yesterday. At least the girls had some manners.

After dinner, everyone makes their way to the fire pit outside. Puck stands next to Rachel as she listens to Mike and Matt tell her about all of the dance training they've been doing to get ready for their audition. He thinks it's odd that instead of offering them advice or telling them how they could be training more or better or something, she's just smiling and nodding and not really adding anything to the conversation. And that's just not normal.

"What's going on? Why are you so quiet tonight?" Puck had waited until Mike and Matt had gone to get another beer before turning to question Rachel.

She throws him a tight smile, insists that she's fine and walks away towards Finn and Artie. Puck decides to let it go for now, but he watches her for the rest of the night.

* * *

Quinn and Tina were on the other side of the fire pit and chatting about school. Tina was going to Notre Dame and loved it. "So do you know if Artie is seeing anyone?" Quinn wasn't really expecting this question. She knows that they used to date and that they broke up after graduation but that's about all she knows. She glances out of the corner of her eye at Tina and can tell the girl is nervous about Quinn's answer.

"I don't think he's really seeing anyone at school but I'm not sure. He was studying with this girl in his classes though. Why?" She knows that he isn't, she just doesn't want to give a definitive answer until she knows why Tina's asking.

Just then, Will claps his hands to get everyone's attention and says that he has an announcement to make.

Quinn might kill him for interrupting Tina's answer. Seriously. Murder him.

"Emma and I are getting married next summer, and we'd love for all of you to be there."

The announcement is met with claps and shouts of congratulations, with a few "its about damn time" calls thrown in. Rachel thinks Emma's smile is so wide it might break her face. But she is genuinely happy for them. Lord knows they'd been through enough crap to finally get it together. Rachel looks around the fire pit and finds Quinn…looking seriously pissed about something. She follows Quinn's line of sight and sees that Tina has taken a perch on Artie's chair and they are talking together.

Rachel quickly grabs Mike and Matt and makes her way over to Quinn. She then demands for the boys to show them what dances they had been working on. So the boys put on some music and start dancing. Their dancing had always been good, but Rachel can tell they had been practicing because the dances they are doing are downright amazing.

Mike puts on an old rap song that they danced to in glee club and demands for Will to come join them and show Emma his rap skills.

"But I've already seen them! "The Thong Song!" Remember Will…when you were giving me dance lessons a few years ago?"

Everyone kind of freezes for a moment and turns with their mouths open to look at Will. He has enough grace to look slightly embarrassed for himself.

"Dude. You tried to get with her by singing the "Thong Song"? No wonder it took you two so long to get together." Puck always thought Will had more game than that…but apparently he'd been wrong.

"Seriously Mr. Schue…I mean Will…that has to be the worst idea ever. Why would you do that?" Finn is in disbelief that his favorite teacher likes the "Thong Song".

"No it was lovely! Really!" Insists Emma, but at this point no one is really listening to her. Instead, they're all chanting "Thong Song! Thong Song! Thong Song!" trying to get Will to show them his moves.

Will caves and admits that he has the song on his IPOD. He does try to explain that he doesn't like the song and he didn't CHOOSE the song for her dance lessons but no one is having it. There is no coming back from the "Thong Song".

He agrees to do the dance as long as Mike and Matt are his back up dancers. They get through it up until the first chorus, but even they are laughing too hard when Will gets to the "dumps like a truck" part. Will gives up and admits that he shouldn't have tried to impress Emma with that song, no matter how much she now insists that it was fun.

This first dance leads to many, many more reenactments of glee club dances. The girls take Emma off to the side and try to teach her some dance moves so she can join in. Santana, in keeping with the theme of trying to freak Emma out, has taken it upon herself to teach her some of the more sexier dance moves she knows. Rachel and Quinn just keep pouring her more glasses of wine to try and get her to loosen up. It totally works.

Finn and Puck are just drunk enough to start singing boy band songs. Artie sees a golden opportunity.

"How do you guys know all of the words to those songs?"

"I have a younger sister dude." Puck answers quickly. "And I used to spend a lot of time at Pucks house so yea. His younger sister." Finn is going to just go with that.

At this point, they have the attention of all of the guys there. Even Will is looking at them oddly now.

Artie eyes them speculatively. "Your younger sister would have been 3 when that song came out. Try again."

Finn is trying not to freak out. He's hoping that the summer between 5th and 6th would always remain a secret between the two childhood best friends. He does not want it to get out that he and Puck had wanted to start a boy band and so they had learned every Backstreet Boy, N'sync and 98 degrees song that they could. And that they used to perform them for their moms. He knows there's damaging video evidence of this somewhere, but his mom refuses to tell him where and Puck's mom just laughed so hard when Puck demanded she destroy it that he just gave up.

Puck and Finn are looking at each other and trying to silently communicate some kind of response that will in NO WAY incriminate them in their embarrassing boy band past when they hear loud laughter coming from the other side of the yard.

"Holy hell." Will is pretty sure that the girls have gotten Emma drunk enough to perform some Britney Spears songs with them. He knows she is going to be mad at him tomorrow but he just HAS to get his camera and document this. She looks hot when she sways her hips like that.

Finn and Puck look at each other with relief, happy that no one will learn the true events of the "Summer that shall not be spoken of ever". They forgot about Artie though.

"YOU TWO TRIED TO START A BOY BAND!" Artie's yells are enough to get the girls to stop dancing. "That's the only explanation for knowing EVERY SINGLE WORD to those songs!"

"I knew that would come back to haunt us!" Finn's shout has just confirmed what Artie had accused them of. Puck turns to Finn and yells, "Shut the hell up man! Deny! We always said we would deny everything and now you've gone and told everyone! DAMNIT!"

The girls are besides themselves with laughter and even Will is having a good chuckle at their expense. The only two who aren't laughing are Mike and Matt and its for two reasons: Reason Number One is that they totally tried to start one too when they were younger and Reason Number Two is that their feelings are slightly hurt that Puck and Finn didn't invite them to be part of their boy band. They had all known each other back then and were on the same sports teams.

Rachel makes her way over to Puck. All earlier thoughts about him and Santana had left her as the night had gone on. She's had such a good time that she's decided she doesn't really care what (who) he used to do and maybe it's more about who he is turning out to be. After all, she knows he's acted differently in college that he used to in high school.

She's still laughing as she tells him that she used to be a huge 98 Degrees fan. Puck thinks, yea it's nice to see her smiling at him again and not all tense like she was earlier, but damn he wishes it wasn't because she had found out his most embarrassing secret EVER.

* * *

The end of the night finds Rachel's dads coming to get her and Quinn, who also offer to drop Artie off at his house. Puck's mom comes and gets him and Finn, since the boys have decided that an all night Call of Duty marathon is in order. Matt's older brother comes and gets the rest of the kids and offers to drive them home. Will and Emma's house looks like a tornado ran through it, but Will forces Emma not to think about cleaning it up until tomorrow. He wants to see some more of his fiancée's dance moves.

Finn had always thought that the videos of Puck, Artie, Quinn and Rachel at college were hilarious. It's not until the next day, after he wakes up in the afternoon since he stayed up all night playing video games with Puck, does he realize that at some point during the get together he had done his "It's My Life" song complete with his fist pumps and leg kicks. And that shit just doesn't look as good without the back up dancers.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7. Still don't own Glee. Hope ya'll like it **

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The rest of the Thanksgiving holidays fly by in a blur. Before Rachel even knows it, she's back at school and getting ready for finals. Which would be a hell of a lot easier if she could actually use her room to study. See, when she had gotten back, Rachel had gotten the whole story on how Jordan's boyfriends apartment was being fumigated or cleaned or something and he was going to stay with them for awhile. In the dorms.

Rachel knows that there are rules against this. She knows that if she went to the RA then something would have to be done. But that would mean actually finding the RA, who she hasn't seen in weeks. And she can't go and study in Quinn's room, because Quinn's roommate still won't leave her room. This means that Rachel is basically living out of the library, and only going to her dorm to shower, change clothes and try to sleep. She's been in the library late enough every night that her roommate and the boyfriend are finished doing...whatever...and are normally asleep when she gets back. Thankfully.

It's a few days before finals, and Rachel has already had two group meetings to work on various projects and spent a grand total of 5 hours in the library after the meetings working on papers. She wants a shower, she wants food and she wants her headache to go away. Rachel walks up to her room, puts her key in the lock and opens the door only to be assaulted with images of her roommate and her boyfriend doing…things she'd rather not witness ever again.

Rachel slams the door and tries to fight the tears that are now threatening to spill. She can't even bring herself to go in and grab clothes to change into. And she can't go up to Quinn's room because she just left Quinn studying in the library with Artie.

**Rachel 11:20 pm: **Noah, I've been sexiled. Can I come over to your dorm?

She sits down on a bench outside her dorm waiting for his answer. She seriously hopes he isn't already sleeping or studying. She hasn't really had a chance to see him much since they got back earlier in the week.

**Noah 11:22pm: **come on over

Noah had been crazy busy as well once he got back. There had been a few papers that he had been putting off and a group presentation that has been taking up most of his time this week. He's hardly even seen Artie, and he lives with that dude. Come to think of it, where the hell is Artie?

**Noah 11:24 pm: **did you move out? Where the hell have you been?

**Artie 11:25 pm: **Library. Always in the damn library…probably another all-nighter tonight. Have beer ready for me for tomorrow. I'm taking Friday night off studying.

Noah hears Rachel knock on the door, so he gets up and answers it. He is not prepared for the sight that greets him.

"Are you OK? You look like shit?" Noah regrets the words as soon as they are out of his mouth. He knows that girls, especially Rachel, don't appreciate being told that they look like hell. But she's standing there with her hair up in a loose ponytail, bags under her eyes and her makeup kind of…smudged. He thinks he can count on one hand the number of times he's seen her in jeans and a hoodie…it's a good look for her but still. It's not in the normal Rachel Berry wardrobe rotation.

His words appear to be the straw that broke the camel's back…or the insult that broke Rachel Berry's spirit. The look in her eyes is nothing short of murderous as she hisses at him, " Yes Thank You Noah. I am aware that I look like a homeless person right now. And if you are wondering just WHY I look like a homeless person then I will tell you. It's because my bitch of a roommate has decided that since she can't stay at her giant of a boyfriends apartment this week so they have moved into my room. And they're always there. Having sex. All the time. And I have finals and group projects and papers to write and I've been in the library ALL DAY and all I wanted to do tonight when I got done was go to my room, take a damn shower and eat some food and fall asleep. Because tomorrow is Friday. And all I have tomorrow is two classes to get through and I just need some sleep to get through them. But I can't even go to my room because when I tried, they were having sex. And I can't be in there when they're doing that. I just can't." She's near tears again and Noah can tell.

Noah knows he isn't great at the comforting thing. But there's something about Rachel that makes him want to take care of her. Maybe it's his way of making up for the torment he used to put her through. He's not sure. But what he is sure of is that he can try and make her night a little bit better.

"Have you eaten anything?" Rachel shakes her head no. "Ok, I'll order us a pizza, you go and take a shower in our bathroom." He tosses some sweat pants and a t-shirt at her.

Rachel has never been more grateful for clean clothes and a shower in her life. She throws her arms around Noah, whispers "Thank You" and heads for the awesome handicapable bathroom. She and Quinn have noticed in the past that the guys manage to keep the bathroom pretty clean (for two guys) since the girls are there a lot. She undresses, gets in and turns the water as hot as she can stand it. She notices two sets of shower products.

She picks one of the soap bottles up smells it and puts it back. She picks up the other bottle, smells it and smiles when she can tell that it's the soap that Noah normally uses. She knows he won't mind if she uses it and she's kind of happy about smelling like Noah for the rest of the night.

Rachel gets out of the shower, towels off and pulls on Noah's clothes. They're huge on her. She's pulled the drawstring on the sweatpants as tight as they can go and they still might fall off of her if she moves the wrong way.

Noah laughs when he sees Rachel come out of the bathroom holding onto her sweatpants so they don't fall down. Between the t-shirt, the sweatpants, the wet hair and no make-up , Rachel knows she's never looked worse in front of him.

"Damn girl…you look hot in my clothes." Noah is pretty sure he will remember Rachel in his clothes forever. The clothes are huge on her but still. It's weirdly hot.

Rachel is trying to hide the blush on her face with her hair. She knows Noah has always been a flirt with her and she shouldn't take his compliments to heart. But it's nice to hear that he thinks she's hot. She settle's in on his bed with him while they wait for the pizza and watch late night TV.

Later, when they are sitting on the floor and eating pizza, a thought occurs to Noah. "So does this count as the dinner that I owe you for kicking my ass at car games?"

Rachel thinks about it for a minute. On the one hand, he had paid for the pizza. But on the other hand, she had secretly been hoping for an actual date with him. Or a semi-date. Or something other than pizza on the floor of his dorm room.

She looks at him as she answers. "Do you want it to count as the dinner you owe me?"

"Not really. I was thinking we could actually go out and look all nice and shit. I know that technically Artie and I owe you and Quinn both dinner…but maybe just you and I could do our half of the bet. Leave Artie to his own devices with Quinn." Noah hadn't even hesitated as he said all of this. Besides, he's pretty sure that Artie and Quinn have this weird thing going on and they won't mind just the two of them having dinner.

"I think that sounds lovely." She's not sure if it qualifies as an actual date or two friends hanging out. She'll decide later once she's not so tired.

They finish their pizza and get ready for bed. Rachel climbs into Noah's bed while he's in the bathroom brushing his teeth and getting ready for bed. It's only after she gets settled on the super tiny twin bed that she realizes that Artie isn't back and maybe Noah expects her to go sleep on Artie's bed…? But she is super comfortable and the pillow smells like Noah…as her eyes drift close she vaguely registers the feeling of arms being wrapped around her.

Noah had come out of the bathroom to see Rachel dozing off in his bed. He hadn't told her that Artie wasn't coming back tonight on purpose. If she was sleeping over in his dorm then he wanted her sleeping in his bed. Therefore, he is stoked to see Rachel had crawled into his bed instead of Artie's.

Noah turns off the bathroom lights and crawls into bed next to Rachel. He's slightly bummed that she had been asleep when he came out of the bathroom so she didn't notice that he was sleeping with sweat pants and no shirt. He knows she likes the guns. He was almost as tired as Rachel was so he is nearly asleep as he wraps his arms around her and falls asleep.

* * *

Quinn is exhausted. She had spent the entire week in the library, culminating in an all night cram session with Artie for a test she had today that she was still not feeling prepared for. It was her last test in the class before the final exam. Quinn thinks that the professor is bordering on abuse but there's nothing she can do about the course load. She just needs to get through the test this morning and the exam next week and then she never has to see the sadistic bitch of an English Lit. professor EVER again.

Quinn gets out of her test feeling somewhat satisfied with her performance and looks at her phone. She has a text from Artie. She opens it and realizes that it's a picture of Puck and Rachel spooning on Puck's bed. She calls Artie.

"Dude! When did you take that picture?"

"After we left the library this morning I went back to our room and that's what I found. Do you think we could use it for blackmail against Puck for something? This would totally kill his badass image." Artie thinks that the combination of the boy band revelation over Thanksgiving and being found spooning with Rachel would kill whatever reputation Puck had left from high school.

Quinn would like to say yes, that they should post it on Facebook or something but she can't. For starters, she knows Rachel might have some evidence of her and Artie doing the same thing. And also, she doesn't want to ruin whatever it is that Rachel and Puck have going on. Everyone knows that those two have always been sort of…drawn together. Quinn thinks that now they don't have to worry about the hierarchy of high school politics then they sort of might have a chance at working out.

"We can't Artie, I'm pretty sure Rachel has a picture of us sleeping together that one time…" Quinn cringes at the way that came out "I mean not sleeping together like…that…I mean that time we fell asleep on the same bed a couple weeks ago?" She's glad he can't see her face right now because she is blushing like crazy.

Artie is silenced by the thought of him and Quinn…sleeping together. A lot of ideas have suddenly sprung to his mind.

"Artie? Hello?" Quinn quickly pulls her phone away from her ear to make sure they didn't get disconnected or something.

Artie is brought back to earth by Quinn's voice in his ear. Right. He's on the phone. And not thinking about him and Quinn…sleeping.

"Hey yea…no I remember the time. How'd your test go?" Quinn is grateful for the subject change. They talk for awhile longer and make plans to meet up later. Quinn's plans to go back to her room to crash for a few hours have changed now that she's seen the picture. She's on a mission to find Rachel and find out what happened last night between her and Puck.

Quinn gets to Rachel's room, knocks and flings the door open (she learned how to make an entrance from Puck)…only to see Rachel's nasty roommate making out with her gross boyfriend on the bed.

"Jordan! Have you seen Rachel? Is she here?" Quinn assumes the grunts mean no. Quinn shudders as she closes the door and pulls out her phone.

**Quinn 2:15pm : **Your roommate is a skank. I need to gouge my eyes out now. Where are you?

**Rachel 2:16 pm: **Sitting on the floor outside your room. Can't go to my room. Your room was locked. If I go to the library again I'll kill myself. Been here for an hour or so.

Quinn hurries up to her room and sure enough she finds Rachel slouched on the floor leaning against the wall. She's pretty sure Rachel is still wearing the same clothes from yesterday. Rather than invite her in, Quinn just sits down next to Rachel and leans back against the wall.

"So your roommate is around again huh?"

Rachel just looks at her and nods sadly. "Hopefully they are leaving tomorrow. Some work was being done at that guys apartment. I walked in on them having sex last night"

Quinn's gasp of horror makes Rachel smile a little bit. "Is that why you ended up sleeping over at Pucks last night?"

Rachel glances sideways at Quinn "How did you know that?"

Quinn smirks and gets out her phone and pulls up the picture that Artie sent her. She hands the phone over to Rachel.

Rachel is surprised by the picture. She knew Artie had been there when she had woken up this morning, but she hadn't heard him come in or anything. She's not going to admit it, but the picture of her sleeping next to Noah is so cute. He's all curled up behind her and his nose is nuzzling her neck and Rachel is even kinda smiling in her sleep.

"Can you forward that to me?" Quinn is surprised. Rachel didn't freak out over Artie taking the picture or seem upset that she was caught cuddling with Noah. Quinn was totally expecting that she was going to have to talk Rachel down from a ledge at some point in this conversation. Quinn is even more surprised when Rachel pulls out her own phone and shows her the picture that Quinn suspected she had. She smiles as she looks at the sleeping forms of her and Artie. Rachel agrees to send her the picture.

Quinn turns back to Rachel and asks, "What's going on with you two?"

"I don't know. We're going out tonight for the dinner, but I don't know if it's a date or if it's just because he lost a bet. I mean, I've always had this…thing…with him. But I don't know what he's thinking." Quinn thinks Rachel must be confused because she didn't need a dictionary to decipher that sentence. And when Rachel isn't using big words, then that means something is up.

Quinn just nods. She's witnessed their weird Jew flirtation in high school and she isn't surprised that it's carried over to college.

"What are you going to wear tonight?" Quinn has decided to distract Rachel from feelings and instead let her focus on clothes. Because Quinn didn't have any more answers to the whole situation than Rachel did.

Rachel groans. "I have no idea. I have to try and get ready around my skeezy roommate. Can you help me?"

Quinn agrees. She sends Rachel down to grab any clothes that she thinks she might want to wear and any makeup she'll need. Quinn tells her she can use the shower on her hall and get ready in her room. They'll put up the privacy screens and just ignore her own crazy roommate. Rachel hugs her and says thanks and goes to get her stuff.

While Rachel is down getting her clothes (and Quinn is well aware that Rachel will probably try and bring up anything she's ever bought) an evil though enters Quinn's mind. She's pretty confident that when Rachel starts singing showtunes as shes getting ready, her roommate will flee the room like it was on fire. Excellent.


	8. Chapter 8

Sorry it took so long. Life happens. Don't own anything

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"Dude you need to stop moving before I run you down with my chair." Artie could no longer keep quiet after watching Puck for the last two hours rearrange stuff and change clothes and try to play video games and open and shut his computer. He kept picking things up and putting them back in different places. He had changed his outfit at least 3 times. He kept turning on his XBOX and then turning it off. It was driving Artie crazy.

"I thought you were just going to dinner with Rachel because of the bet? Why are you so nervous? Is this a date or something?" Artie is trying not to laugh. Puck has literally been bouncing off the walls. He wonders what happened to the "Puckerone" that had dated pretty much every girl in their high school.

Puck truly had no idea why he was acting like this. It's just ever since he got done with classes all he could think about was his dinner with Rachel that night. And yea, they'd hung out alone before, but something about tonight just felt…different. And he couldn't figure out WHY he couldn't figure out what was different and that was just driving him crazy and that was why he COULD. NOT. STOP. MOVING.

As soon as he got back to the dorm, and before Artie had gotten there, he had actually cleaned his side of the room. Put clothes away, arranged his DVD's and made his bed. He thought about actually doing laundry, but that just seemed like overkill. He started to strum his guitar but put that down in favor of playing video games. But even that couldn't keep his attention, so he decided to get ready early.

After Artie had gotten over the shock of actually seeing the floor for the first time since the first week of the semester, he tried to ignore Puck as he wandered around the room until he couldn't stand it anymore. Hence the conversation they were having now.

"It's not a date. It's just our dinner from the bet. Why are you making such a big deal about this?" Puck does not need Artie questioning him right now. His questions all seem like they are leading somewhere that Puck doesn't feel like thinking about right now. Right now, Puck just wants to change his shirt again. And maybe play Call of Duty. He doesn't want to think about why he's so nervous about going out to dinner with Rachel. At a close Mexican restaurant that doesn't card with cheap margarita pitchers.

Artie just looks at Puck and laughs.

"Are you always like this before you go on dates? Was this what you were like in high school? Because I would have paid good money to see that."

Puck doesn't really want to have to deal with any more of Artie's questions so he just leaves to go over to Rachel's room early. He knocks once and flings the door open, only to find that other girl who lives there wearing practically nothing straddling some guy. He's going to assume that this is Rachel's roommate and Rachel's roommate's boyfriend.

"You guys need to learn how to lock this damn door. Seriously. Did not want to see that."

Puck closes the door and goes up to Quinn's room, where he assumes Rachel is. He knocks once and flings the door open to much better results.

He see Rachel sitting in Quinn's desk chair while Quinn is messing with her hair.

"You could have given me the heads up about you being up here ya know."

Rachel just laughs. "We're they having sex again? Ugh. I'm going to have to disinfect that entire room. She's so nasty."

Quinn finishes up playing with Rachel's hair and tells her she looks beautiful. Puck is inclined to agree, but he's not going to say it in front of Quinn.

Rachel tries to ignore the way Noah is blatantly checking her out as she grabs her jacket off Quinn's bed. She knows she looks good but seriously, it's jeans and a sweater…OK very tight jeans and a very low cut sweater. But maybe he should be better at hiding his staring.

As Rachel and Noah are getting ready to walk out the door, Noah turns around and mentions to Quinn that Artie's got the dorm room to himself if she's interested. He maybe made it sound dirtier than how it should have been, and the wink at the end probably didn't help things so he can't get too mad when he has to duck from a flying textbook.

They've been at the restaurant for over an hour and Rachel still doesn't know if it's a date. What she does know is that the food is good and the margaritas are excellent and that Noah looks wonderful. She's pretty sure she hasn't stopped smiling the entire time.

They've been commiserating over exams and papers that are due and talking about how nice it will be to go home for a week or two and not worry about school. They've discussed Hanukkah plans and their old friends from high school and how much fun Mr. Schue and Emma's wedding will be. Basically they haven't stopped talking the entire time that they've been eating, which Rachel thinks is weird because they see each other almost every day. Or every few days. Ok they see each other a lot so she didn't realize that they would have this much to talk about. Apparently they do.

"So I know the bet was just dinner and stuff…but some of my friends here are in this band and they're playing tonight if you want to go? I have no idea if they are any good but it could be fun." Puck hadn't really planned on going to see these guys from his class play….or inviting Rachel out to see them play…he just knows he doesn't want the night to end here.

Rachel looks up at him and smiles. He takes that as a yes.

The waiter brings them the check and Noah won't let Rachel even reach for it. She knows he owes her dinner from the bet, but he hasn't brought it up since they got to the restaurant so she's not sure if this is still a dinner out of obligation or an actual date. As she watches Noah take care of the bill, Rachel realizes she no longer cares. She's had a great night and he didn't have to invite her out to hear a band play, but he did. She's been insecure enough since high school to pretty much question everyone's motives around her. But she never really had to question Noah's. She knows he wouldn't have asked her to hang out after dinner if he didn't want her around. He's always been pretty transparent with her.

They're walking across campus and Rachel is giving Noah a hard time about where the band is playing.

"Noah. Seriously. I'm freezing. Your friends couldn't have played their gig at any one of the bars closer to the restaurant? They had to play all the way on the other side. What's up with that?"

Noah laughs because he knows she's obviously teasing him. But he can tell that she's really really cold by the way her teeth are chattering so he wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her in close.

He whispers in her ear that they're almost there and watches as the smile blossoms across her face. He thinks he likes that smile.

* * *

Quinn knows that Puck had been joking about Artie being alone in their dorm room. She KNOWS that. But it's just she didn't really have any other plans for the night now that Rachel was gone and she didn't want to go to any of the last parties of the semester without her friends there so she's just kind of sitting on her bed trying to ignore her moping roommate. Who seriously needs to get a freaking life. Honestly. She wasn't even this miserable and mopey when she went through everything in high school. Quinn has not so secretly been hoping that this girl won't come back from the Christmas holidays.

As she's sitting on her bed and thinking of how awesome it would be to have a new roommate that she actually liked or, even better, the room to herself, her phone beeps.

**Artie 8:11 pm**: Got any plans tonight?

**Quinn 8:12 pm:** No. I'm so bored. It kind of makes me sad to realize how much of my social life is depended upon Rachel Berry.

**Artie 8:14 pm:** haha. Come over and hang out. I owe you dinner anyway so lets order in some food and watch a movie and not think of all of the exams we have next week. Sound good?

**Quinn 8:15 pm:** be right over.

Quinn quickly surveys her outfit in the mirror. She's wearing her favorite pair of jeans and an Ohio State hoodie. She could change, but after the crazy week she's had she just doesn't care. Plus, Artie has seen her in much worse. Hell, he's seen her 9 months pregnant and beyond hormonal. And it's not like she's looking to impress him anyways. Right.

Quinn walks over to the boys dorm quickly. It's gotten crazy cold out in the past few weeks and she's already sick of it. She hates being cold. Once she gets to Artie's room she knocks once and flings the door open.

Artie laughs when he sees Quinn surveying the room in absolute shock.

"Artie…what...how…did you guys hire a maid? I can see the floor? I've never seen the floor in here. I didn't even know you guys had a rug. A blue rug. What the hell happened?"

"Puck did it."

"No way. He's never cleaned anything. Ever."

"Nope. It was all Puck. I came back from classes this afternoon and the room was clean. I'm pretty happy that I won't be having to roll over clothes anymore. I think he was nervous about his dinner with Rachel."

"He was nervous? Puck? I've never seen him nervous. Did you get it on video?"

"No. He left before I could get out my camera. But do you see how clean this room is. That's how nervous he was. It was insane."

After Quinn gets over the double shock of seeing the floor of the boys dorm room AND Puck actually being nervous, she and Artie decide to just order pizza and watch TV. Quinn knows that Artie feels bad about not actually taking her out to dinner to settle the bet, but Quinn has assured him multiple times that all she feels like doing after this crazy week is just lay down and eat junk food. And hang out with Artie in a place other than the library.

After they finish their pizza, they get settled on Artie's bed to watch reruns of "Boy Meets World". Quinn manages to stay awake for about ten minutes before she completely passes out. Artie realizes that Quinn is asleep almost immediately. Her breathing always sounds different when she's asleep. And the look on her face is just…peaceful. It's hard not to stare at her when she's awake. It's damn near impossible not to stare at her while she's asleep.

Artie is pretty sure his hand has a mind of it's own when it reaches up to brush some of her hair out of her face. And the kiss on the cheek he gave her is going to be declared temporary insanity. Sometime he wishes he could be the kind of guy that Quinn deserves. One that could take her dancing and out to parties where they wouldn't have to sit on the sidelines. But right now, when she's asleep in his bed and curled around his body, he lets himself think that maybe he already is the kind of man that Quinn…deserves. Or wants. Because he knows she wouldn't be here if she didn't want to be. And it's with that thought in his mind that Artie falls asleep with his arms wrapped around Quinn and a slight smile on his face.

* * *

The bar is crowded and the band is more loud than they are good and Noah is annoyed. As soon as they had shown up to the bar, Rachel had been pulled aside by some guy in one of her classes. He knows she doesn't want to stand around and talk to this guy about some paper they have due before the exam, but he also knows she's polite to a fault. So he lets her alone with him for a few minutes while he goes and gets them some more drinks from the bar.

He's at the bar and notices that Rachel is flashing her "HELP ME" look on her face at him from across the bar. He decides that she has been polite to this douche long enough. And besides, it's a Friday night. This guy really needs to stop asking her dumbass questions about an exam or a paper or WHATEVER on a freaking Friday night. Dude needs to chill. For real.

Puck grabs their drinks and some extra shots for them and makes his way across the bar to Rachel. He's pretty annoyed with the fact that the band isn't that good and he doesn't have Rachel next to him. And he's pretty sure that the guy might be hitting on Rachel. So he does what he's good at.

Puck walks up to Rachel and hands her a shot. She's giving him a look since he's clearly interrupted the conversation she was having. She toasts the shot to Noah, puts the glass down and turns to smile up at Noah.

Noah's had enough of this guy taking up Rachel's time. He's had enough of this crappy band and it's ridiculously loud songs. He's had enough of pretending that he doesn't want her.

Noah toasts the shot with Rachel, watches as she puts down the cup and turns to him and pulls her in close. She's so short that her entire body is flush against his and she is straining to look up at him with just the biggest smile on her face.

Noah looks down, smiles and pulls her face in close. He hears her breath catch, brushes some hair back across her face and kisses her.

Rachel is clutching Noah's jacket like it was a life line. She's pretty sure that she could live forever, just as long as Noah was kissing her. He tastes just like she remembers. He feels just like she remembers. She just can't remember why it took her so long to kiss him again. Those kisses in her bedroom were never enough. Could never be enough.

Noah pulls back long enough to look in Rachel's eyes. All he can see is that they're big and brown and he can't resist them any longer. Noah suddenly wishes they weren't in a crowded bar, but back in her dorm. Or his dorm. Or just somewhere where they could be alone and not have to worry about being cited for Public Indecency Laws.

* * *

Artie is fast asleep when he hears a noise out in the hallway. He glances up at the clock and sees that it's 2 in the freaking morning and he had been in a blissful state of slumber and wrapped around Quinn when whatever the hell was going on outside of his room had woken him up.

Suddenly the door to the room is kicked open and he and Quinn are blinded by the light from the hallway. She's awake now since the door being kicked open hadn't exactly been quiet.

They're both squinting into the light when they realize just what the hell is going on in the doorway!

"OH MY GOD! MY EYES" Quinn has always been dramatic, and watching Puck and Rachel basically suck each others faces off is just giving her a good opportunity to utilize her dramatic chops.

"Can't you guys do this somewhere else? I was sleeping!" Artie likes sleeping. He especially likes sleeping in the same bed as Quinn. And anything that is going to make Quinn leave his bed will not be appreciated.

It appears that Puck and Rachel had completely forgotten that Artie would be in the room. The stunned looks on their faces is enough to send Artie and Quinn into a fit of hysterical laughter.

Puck and Rachel are standing in the light of the doorway completely frozen at having being caught totally making out, and Artie and Quinn are besides themselves with laughter with the fire alarm goes off.

Puck swears "SON OF A BITCH!" as he and Rachel flee the dorm room.


	9. Chapter 9

I still don't own Glee. This chapter is longer because it's almost done and I won't be able to update so much for the next few weeks. Don't hate me. I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

There's only two days left of finals and Artie and Quinn have been staking out the same table at the library every single night for a week. He will be beyond thrilled once this first semester is finally, finally done. Not that he expects any of the upcoming ones to be better, it's just he definitely needs a break.

They're sitting there in silence when he notices Quinn go completely still while looking at her computer. He watches her eyes water and sees her take a few calming breaths, but he can tell she's totally about to lose it. And he has no idea why.

"Quinn?"

Her eyes are unfocused as she looks at him. And then looks back at her computer.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm…fine." She's staring at the table like it has the answers to life written on it. Artie is seriously freaked out now. "I just got a semi-coherent email from my mom. My presence is expected at a family dinner the night after we all get back to Lima. They don't even want me there for Christmas. I am only allowed to be there the Friday before Christmas because my sister and her husband are going to be giving a big announcement."

Artie doesn't know what to say. Quinn looks devastated.

"Do you want me to go with you? Would that be okay?" He knows he's volunteering to be present at what is going to be the most awkward family dinner ever, but he's not about to let her go alone.

"No. It'll be fine. I can handle it. We should keep studying." She turns her attention back to the textbook in front of her.

"Quinn, I really think that you should have someone with you."

"It's fine. Let it go." Quinn's sharp reply is enough to shock him into silence. The fact that she's never taken that tone of voice with him lets him know just how much this has upset her. He's not going to push the issue now. He's just going to have to keep an eye on her for the next few days.

* * *

Rachel hadn't seen Noah since their…date…or whatever it was. Stumbling into the room and finding Artie and Quinn there had been like a bucket of cold water thrown on them. She doesn't regret kissing Noah. Hell…she's never regretted any of the times she's kissed Noah. She just wishes that there weren't witnesses to it. And that there was some kind of…definition…to whatever it was that they had been doing.

Because she knows she'd like a repeat of Friday night. But she doesn't know if he'd ever want to repeat it.

She only has one final left that she feels pretty confident about, so she goes up to Quinn's room to see how all of her stuff has been going. And to get her take on what she witnessed on Friday night. Rachel hadn't hung around outside the building that night to listen to whatever teasing Artie and Quinn were going to throw their way.

Because as soon as Rachel got outside after the fire alarm went off, she just kept on walking back to her room.

And Noah didn't try to stop her.

She finds Quinn sitting on her bed staring off into space with her hair in a messy ponytail and no makeup on. Quinn Fabray not wearing make up was like Rachel wearing jeans and a hoodie. Rachel immediately knew something was wrong.

"What's wrong? Did you fail a final? Forget to turn in a paper? Is Artie dating someone? Is that why you look so sad?" Rachel is trying to think of everything that could make Quinn upset.

"What? No. Artie's got a girlfriend? What?" The only question that actually registered in Quinn's mind was the one about Artie. How dare he not tell her he was dating someone? And just when was he dating someone? She thinks that they spend all of their time together in the library, so just where was he finding the time to hook up with someone?

"I bet he's dating that whore from his class. I knew it!"

"Okay you need to seriously calm down. I was just asking you if you looked so sad because Artie said he was dating someone. As far as I know, he is not dating anyone. In fact, I'm pretty sure he only has eyes for a certain blonde former cheerio that I know."

"Brittany?" Quinn knows she doesn't mean Brittany. She's just decided to be difficult, because yes has figured out that she likes Artie, she just doesn't feel up to talking about it right now.

"You know who I mean. What's going on? You are still staying with me over the Holiday Break right? I mean, I know we're Jewish, but my dad's fell in love with you over Thanksgiving so they said we could put up a small tree for you to decorate. And we wouldn't make you go to Temple with us or anything, you could totally go to church on Christmas and we'd do a dinner and everything if you wanted too! Please come home with me!"

The desperate look on Rachel's face is almost enough to make Quinn laugh. Almost.

"Chill out Drama Queen. Yes, I'm still coming home with you. But I have to go to dinner on Friday night at my parents house because my sister and her husband have a big announcement to share."

"Oh."

Quinn's pretty sure that the fact that Rachel Berry is speechless is a testament to how much it is going to suck to hear about how her sister is finally giving her parents their first (second) grandchild.

"Whatever. It's fine. I'll just go to dinner and leave as soon as possible. I can handle it. So tomorrow after our last final we should all go out and celebrate our last night of our first semester of college!"

Rachel has just decided to accept the subject change and go with it. Because she honestly doesn't know what to say to Quinn to make this all okay. And she really wants Quinn to be okay. This girl who used to torment her every day in high school has become her closest friend and Rachel isn't sure how to make this situation any better.

* * *

Finals are over. Finals are finally over. This week is something that Puck never wants to experience again. But he knows he will next semester. And the next three years after that. But he's not thinking about that right now. Right now he's thinking about the fact that Rachel texted him earlier today and told him that he and Artie had to come out with the girls that night.

It's not like he would have said no, but the way she said it made him feel like something was up. Something more "up" than the fact that they had made out on Friday night and it had been almost a week since that night and they hadn't talked to each other.

And yea, he watched her walk away that night and didn't stop her. He got to sit outside in the freezing Ohio winter weather and think about it. And he doesn't know why he didn't stop her, or try and call her or text her or email her. But he is happy that he's finally heard from her so he agreed to meet up with them later.

Puck had just finished getting dressed and was giving himself a once over to admire himself in the mirror when Artie asks him what he knows about Quinn's family.

"I know that her parents are gigantic assholes. They weren't that great before she got pregnant, always drinking and ignoring her. They criticized her weight a lot and her choices in activities and boys and made sure she had to have straight A's. They were either ignoring her or criticizing her. Never met her older sister, she was married and gone by the time Quinn started high school. Why?"

"She got an email that said they expected her at dinner tomorrow night and that her sister had an announcement to make. She seemed pretty shook up about it."

Puck's head whips around to stare at Artie. "Fuck. We have to go find the girls NOW."

Artie's slightly confused at the change in Puck's demeanor. "Why?"

Puck doesn't really like bringing up his history with Quinn in front of Artie, who he knows has a thing for her, but explains anyway. "Quinn has never responded well to run-ins with her parents. Even in high school…that's kind of how our whole thing happened. She tries to ignore it until she can't and then she loses it. We need to find her now just in case. Rachel won't know what to do."

* * *

And Rachel didn't know what to do. Quinn had convinced Rachel to pre-game with shots while they were getting ready and then go out to the bar early. It was 9:00 pm and they hadn't even eaten dinner yet and Rachel is beyond light headed but just trying to keep up with Quinn. She's never been more grateful to see Noah and Artie walk into the bar.

The boys both have grim looks on her face as they make a beeline over to the girls.

As soon as Quinn sees Artie her whole face lights up. She brings him a shot and takes a seat in his lap. Artie can tell she's already had a lot to drink, so when she isn't looking he steals her own shot from her and downs it.

"Have you had anything to eat?" He can tell Rachel is trying to explain the situation to Noah, but it's hard to hear over the noise of the college kids celebrating the end of finals. Noah looks pissed and Rachel looks drunk and Quinn looks beautiful.

"No! I'm not even hungry though. I like your eyes. You have very good eyes." She's leaning in close to his face to get a better look at his eyes, and it takes everything in Artie's will power to not try and kiss the overly happy drunk girl in a bar.

He knows she's not really happy, but at this point he'll take a drunken smile over tears anyway. Which is where he fears the night is going to end. He's going to do everything in his power to make sure there are no tears tonight.

Rachel had thrown her arms around Noah as soon as he was close enough to catch her. "Noah! We're drunk!"

"I can see that. Have you eaten anything? How's Quinn doing?" Rachel might be drunk, but even she can see how concerned he is for Quinn. She likes that he is a secret worrier. They turn and look over and see Quinn sitting in Artie's lap and nursing another drink.

"Quinn is drunk too! But she's not sad anymore so that's something. And I'm hungry. Feed me?"

Through A LOT of convincing from Puck and Rachel, they get Quinn to agree to leave the bar to go get some pizza down the street. Artie can tell that Puck's arm is the only thing keeping Rachel upright at the moment.

Puck is pissed. Well, not pissed, because he knows Rachel had good intentions when her and Quinn started out this evening. He knows that she just wanted to cheer Quinn up. But really, maybe she should have stopped after her 5th shot and 4th liquor drink. Noah knows that whatever talk he wanted to have with Rachel about last Friday night is shot to hell now.

After the girls eat, they seemed to be a little…calmer. But Quinn refuses to call it a night early and Rachel is trying to be supportive of her so they flat out refuse to go back to the dorms. Puck and Artie aren't about to let them continue drinking without them there so they all go back to their favorite bar. The boys join in on Rachel's plan to keep Quinn happy and distracted for the night. They drink (much less than the girls) and sing karaoke and play drinking games and pool and Artie is pretty sure that they've succeeded with their plan.

It's only after they've left the bars (at closing time) with the girls drunk and the boys buzzed and Quinn's sitting in his lap that he hears a small sniffle. He thinks that they've gone this far into the evening (morning) without tears and he is not about to let her get upset now. They've had too much fun to let that happen.

So he brushes the hair out of her face and looks her in the eye and starts singing. Any fun song that comes to his mind he is singing softly to Quinn in her ear. He's grateful that even though Rachel and Puck are pushing his chair and close enough to hear his singing, they let him have this one. They are ignoring him and carrying on their own conversation. Or they really are that drunk that they don't realize what's going on right now. Whatevs.

"I love hearing you sing. It makes me happy every time." Quinn lays her head against his shoulder and closes her eyes. They're only halfway back to the girls dorms when he hears her breathing even out and he knows she's asleep. Mission accomplished.

They reach the dorms and Rachel promises to stay in Quinn's room and keep an eye on her. Noah would think that it normally would be a good idea, except that Rachel is in no shape to keep an eye on herself, much less watch out for Quinn. So he suggest the girls come back to their room and hang out. Rachel agrees and Quinn's asleep anyway so they go back to the boys room.

Noah's pretty much supporting all of Rachel's weight for the rest of the walk back. And pushing Artie and Quinn in the chair. He'd probably be pissed if he wasn't drunk too.

"Noah…I'm sorry I drank so much. I was just trying to help her." Noah looks down into Rachel's big brown eyes and smiles.

"I'm glad you were there for her." He kisses Rachel on her forehead and continues walking. Once they get to the room, he helps Rachel climb into bed and then he has to turn around and lift Quinn off Artie's lap and lay her in Artie's bed.

Once the guys get settled into their beds and the light is turned off, Noah thinks that the night turned out a lot better than he thought it would have. And he also really likes it when Rachel is sleeping next to him.

* * *

They all caravan their cars back to Lima since the break is a couple weeks and they'll all need their cars. But right before Quinn had gotten into her car, Puck had pulled her aside and given her a hug. He whispered in her ear, "I know this dinner is going to suck for you. And I'm sorry for causing it. But…just don't try and get through all of this on your own. You need to let someone be there for you. And maybe that person is Artie. Think about it. And call me if you need me okay?" He feels Quinn nod against his chest.

Quinn walks away to go talk to Artie and Rachel is left standing next to Noah.

"Why'd you walk away?" It had been driving him crazy ever since that night. Rachel turns to look up at him.

"I don't know. Why didn't you stop me?" She doesn't know why she left. She was panicked and she didn't know what to do.

"I don't know. But I do know that I won't be letting you walk away again." While he was telling (promising) her this, he had effectively pinned her back against her car.

Rachel's smile is so wide it looks like it might actually break her face. "Good. Because I've decided I won't be walking away again. You might be stuck with me."

"Best news I've heard all day." He's got a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he leans down and kisses her.

Quinn looks over at the making out couple pressed up against Rachel's car and then back at Artie. "You owe me money dude."

Artie laughs and says, "Damn. You were right. They got together over Holiday Break. How about I pay you tomorrow night after your dinner. You can come over after and hang out and tell me about it and I promise I will pay you the huge sum of $10 that I now owe you."

Quinn giggles and agrees. "That will give me something to look forward to at dinner. Excellent idea."

"About that dinner. You know you can call me or text me whenever. If you want, I'll pick you up and drop you off, although you might want your car there as a getaway car if you need it. And don't let them get to you. You are Quinn Freaking Fabray Damnit and you do not let anyone get you down. Got it?"

She can tell that behind the joking tone, he's dead serious. And she is so grateful for him in this moment that she leans down and kisses him gently on the cheek. "Got it. I am Quinn Freaking Fabray and I will not let those horrible people get to me. Thank you Artie."

After they manage to separate Rachel and Puck, everyone gets into their cars and gets on the road back to Lima.

* * *

Rachel had been worried about sending Quinn off to dinner at her parents the next night. It felt vaguely like sending her off to the Lion's Den. She had tried to let Quinn agree to let her come along for support, but Quinn had laughed and told her she could handle it now. She had her phone and would call or text if she needed anything from Rachel. Besides, she knew Puck and Rachel had plans that night so she wasn't going to interfere with those. She knew the only person she'd be texting that night was Artie.

As she's on her way over to her parents house, she feels her confidence start to waver slightly. She just knows her sister is going to announce her pregnancy and it just brings back all of her old memories from high school that she tries to keep buried. Casey had been married to the most holier than thou guy she could find that her parents would approve of for a few years now. She's not sure she can handle her parents gushing over her sister and brother in law and talking about their first (second) grandchild. Her stomach actually roils at the thought.

By the time she pulls up to her old home, she's practically near tears. As she walks to the front door and rings the bell, she is putting all of her effort into NOT losing her shit. She can just hear Artie's voice telling her that she is Quinn Freaking Fabray and that this will not break her. Just remembering the fact that her and Artie have plans to hang out later is already making her feel better.

Her mother gives her a half-hearted hug and Quinn can tell she's been drinking all day to get through tonight. Her dad still won't look at her or acknowledge her. The only reason she even comes to these is because they are paying her college tuition and credit card bill. And she needs it. IF she ever has any hope of getting OUT of Ohio she needs to suffer through these dinners to do it.

She is surprised to see that her sister is alone. She kind of expected Josh to be here with her for the happy announcement.

They're all seated around the dinner table when her Casey finally speaks.

"Josh and I are getting a divorce."

Quinn nearly falls out of her chair. Because of all the announcements she expected her to make, this was definitely not it.

Her parents are losing their shit, and Quinn is trying not to smile (her sister doesn't seem that broken up about it and she's seriously grateful to not be the horrible daughter anymore. Now they're both bad in their parents eyes, and that's kind of awesome.) Her sister explains that she caught him cheating, and apparently that doesn't seem like a good enough reason for divorce and their parents are just getting louder.

Casey looks over at Quinn and offers to take her out to dinner at a near by restaurant and leave the lunatics behind here to digest the news.

They barely make it out the front door before Quinn tackles her sister in a giant bear hug.

"Casey are you okay?"

"I'm just fine. And I'm sorry I wasn't there for you more in high school when you needed me. But I'd like to be here for you now. We'll catch up at dinner okay?"

* * *

Artie has been going crazy with worry for Quinn. He's called Rachel three times and Puck twice to see if they'd heard anything yet. The fourth time he called Rachel's phone, Puck picked up and told him to chill the fuck out because he was ruining his and Rachel's date. He's about to apologize when he hears a knock at the door. He hangs up on Puck and answers the door.

It's Quinn. Looking unbelievably happy.

"Are you drunk again? What happened at the dinner?" He rolls out the front door and closes the door behind him. If she's drunk he doesn't want his parents to find out.

"No dinner. No baby. They're getting a divorce which I would feel bad about it if Casey had been upset, but she's fine and better off without him she says. She doesn't even care that I'm happy that I'm no longer the bad daughter anymore. Now we both are! They can't ask me why I'm not more like her anymore. It's great! And Casey's moving closer to OSU for a job! Tonight was awesome." Her smile is contagious and Artie finds himself grinning up at her. They're out on his front walk and the moon is out and she just looks so happy that he grabs her wrist and pulls her into his lap.

"I'm happy you're happy Quinn." He pulls her face in close to his, hesitates for just a second and then closes the gap. She tasted like honey and happiness. She pulls back slightly to look in Artie's eyes with a smile.

"Don't think this gets you out of paying me the money I won from our bet you know."

Artie laughs and says, "yeah, yeah. I know." And with that he pulls her in for another kiss.


	10. Chapter 10

Short Chapter. The end!

* * *

It was past midnight before Quinn made it back to Rachel's house. She thought everyone would be asleep and was trying to be quiet as she made her way into the house. She wasn't really planning on walking in on Puck and Rachel half-dressed and making out on the couch while the credits of some movie were rolling on the TV screen.

"Holy Crap!" Quinn's yell is enough to shock Puck so badly that he falls on his ass right to the floor. Rachel's stunned for a moment and then quickly reaches for her shirt to throw back on.

"Ssshhh! Quinn! You'll wake up my dads!" The fear of Rachel's dads is enough to make Puck jump up from the floor and quickly throw his shirt on. He knows all dads hate him, and it's just his luck that he ends up dating a girl with two dads. He knows that Rachel's dads like him, but he's pretty confident that they would kick his ass if they knew what he and Rachel had been doing down here on their couch. He could not wait to get her back to school.

"Seriously Fabray. You need to stop laughing so loud."

Quinn takes a moment to pull herself together and get her laughter under control. Her only regret is that she didn't have Artie here to witness Puck falling onto the floor. He would have loved it.

Rachel finishes getting herself presentable and looks back at Quinn who is smiling like a fool. Which, after the night they all thought she was going to have at her parents house, is very surprising. Rachel stares at her suspiciously… "What's up with you? Why are you smiling like that? What happened at dinner?"

Quinn laughs and gives them the rundown of her very short time at her parents house and her dinner with her sister.

"It's midnight. No way did you hang out with your sister for four hours. What else have you been up to?" Puck has a feeling he already knows, given the way that girl is smiling.

"I just went over and watched a movie with Artie and had some dessert." She doesn't want to tell them just yet that instead of watching the movie, they pretty much were doing exactly what she caught Puck and Rachel doing.

Noah and Rachel glance at each other. They have a silent conversation with their eyes, that concludes with a slight nod of their heads. They don't believe her.

Rachel asks, "What movie?" at the same time that Noah asks, "What did you eat for dessert?"

Quinn freezes. She can't remember…she doesn't even think they put on a movie. His parents had given them their privacy once they had finally come inside. She's pretty sure Artie turned on the TV at the beginning so his parents wouldn't be suspicious….but she couldn't for the life of her name anything that they had "watched".

Puck and Rachel laugh as they watch Quinn struggle to come up with answers.

"You're a horrible liar." Rachel thinks Quinn could have benefited from her acting tips in high school.

"Dude. Busted. You two finally hooked up?"

Quinn is sure that her face is bright red. Just as she's getting ready to answer, they hear a door open upstairs.

"Noah! Run! You were supposed to leave an hour ago!"

Noah is out the door in a flash. Quinn goes and stands by the door so that when her dad comes downstairs and says he heard some talking, Rachel explains that Quinn had just gotten home and they were discussing their evening. Her dad wishes them a good night and goes back to bed.

Quinn and Rachel wait until her dad's door closes before they burst into laughter.

The next night is a holiday themed Glee get together at Will and Emma's house. Artie hitched a ride from Noah and Finn, and by the time they got there, the party is in full swing. Everyone is there except Rachel and Quinn. The boys grab a beer and join the other guys watching some football games.

Artie was sitting off to the side, checking his phone to see where the hell Quinn was when Tina came up and takes a seat on the arm of his chair. He used to love when she did this back in high school. Now it just kid of annoys him. She mentions that she wants to talk later if it's okay with him. He absentmindedly agrees and checks his phone again.

Rachel and Quinn are beyond running late. Quinn couldn't pick out an outfit that she liked and Rachel's hair was just not cooperating AT ALL and by the time they're ready to go, they are running a half hour late. But at least they look great.

They're driving over to Will's house when a thought pops into Rachel's head. "So are you and Artie going to tell everyone that your together? Are you guys together?"

Quinn stares at the window. "I don't think we'll tell everyone. I don't even know what we are. What about you and Puck?"

Rachel doesn't know what they're going to tell people either. They hadn't discussed it last night. They hadn't discussed much of anything last night.

Once the girls finally make it to the party, they are swept up into the kitchen. But not before Artie throws Quinn a shy wave, and not before Puck throws Rachel a seriously dirty wink. Both girls are blushing as they walk into the kitchen and greet their friends.

The girls are in the kitchen watching Emma make dinner and talking about college. Emma asks if they're dating anyone and both Rachel and Quinn quickly answer no. It's enough to raise some eyebrows around the kitchen, but no one says anything. The guys come into the kitchen to join the party.

The kitchen is small and a lot more crowded with 14 people standing around in it. Once Artie rolls in, Quinn walks over and takes a seat in his lap. She probably wouldn't have done it if she hadn't overheard Tina talking with Brittany about her plans to ask Artie to hook up with her over Christmas. She was going to make sure that girl knew Artie was off limits.

Puck's been thinking. He's never really cared what people thought about him before, so he's sure as hell not going to start now. So when they all head into the kitchen, he doesn't hesitate as he makes a beeline over to Rachel. He stands right up behind her and throws his arms around his waist. He can feel her tense up for a moment as she looks around at the people watching them. Then she relaxes back into him.

She turns and whispers up at him, "Noah…what are you doing?"

"I'm holding my girl. What does it look like I'm doing?"

Rachel laughs and smiles up at him.

From across the kitchen Kurt yells, "What is going on with that?" This means that anyone who wasn't looking at them already, is looking at them right now. Rachel blushes and ducks her head.

Noah answers, "We're together. You all have one minute to comment and then get over it. Go."

The first ten seconds are spent in silence and then questions and comments start being fired at them from every direction:

"I thought you guys were already together?" (Brittany)

"Yea cuz no one saw this coming." (Finn)

"When did this happen?" (Will)

"How long has this been going on?" (Santana)

"Have you tapped that yet?" (Mike)

Just because they're commenting and asking questions does not mean that Puck ever has any intention of answering them. He just wanted to let them get them out of their system.

"Ask them what I caught them doing last night on the couch!" (Quinn)

Rachel sees a golden opportunity. "Well it was the same thing you and Artie were doing at his house last night, right Quinn?"

All heads whip over to the corner where Quinn is currently perched on Artie's lap. Quinn starts blushing madly while Artie coughs at his surprise.

"You told her?" He doesn't care, he just wasn't expecting this conversation to go down in front of 12 witnesses.

"Not exactly. She figured it out."

"How?"

Quinn was going to answer but Puck got there first. "Girl could not stop smiling when she got to the house last night. Plus she had a hickey on her neck."

The questions that were being fired at Puck and Rachel are now being turned on Artie and Quinn. They look helplessly over at their friends who are just smiling smugly back at them.

Tina asks awkwardly, "So you guys are together now? How long?"

"um…not too long I guess." Quinn and Artie look at each other and shrug. Will takes pity on them and suggests everyone get back to the lovely dinner that Emma has made them.

The rest of the evening is spent eating and drinking and laughing and trading college stories with all of their friends.

Rachel is sitting on the floor in front of Noah as they all watch Elf with everyone when he leans forward and whispers into her ear, "Wanna get out of here?"

She looks up into his eyes and whispers a yes.

They say their goodbyes and Rachel leaves her car with Quinn so she and Artie aren't stranded at the party.

Not long after that the party breaks up. As Artie and Quinn are getting ready to leave, Artie remembers that Tina needed to talk to him. He wanders over and asks her about it but she says she can't remember what she needed to ask him now and to not worry about it. Quinn has a small smile on her face as she overhears this conversation.

They meet up with Puck and Rachel at Rachel's house. Rachel and Puck get settled on one couch while Artie and Quinn seat themselves on the other couch and pop in a movie. They're all contentedly watching the movie when Rachel smells something….burning. She thought her dads were in the kitchen cooking some cookies, but she hasn't heard from them in awhile.

All of a sudden the fire alarms from the kitchen go off and everyone's on their feet running into the room. Rachel hears her dad's come thundering down the stairs and burst into the kitchen to help. Noah and Rachel are busy turning the smoking oven off as her dads open all the windows to air the smoke out.

"It's like were cursed. All of the freaking fire alarms in the state must go off when were in a 100 foot radius. Unbelievable." Quinn agrees with Rachel as Noah and Artie nod in agreement. Her dads give them a questioning look as the four college kids troop back into the living room to finish their movie.


End file.
